Second Verse, Same As the First
by Gem4
Summary: An alternative to the Buffy musical. Some special guests from LA come to the party Buffy and Willow throw for Xander and Anya's engagement party, but they're not the only surprise.
1. Default Chapter

PARADisclaimer:  Any characters or settings contained herein are the intellectual property of Joss Whedon and Fox.  They are being borrowed for amusement purposes only.  Any lyrics used in this story were not composed by any of the authors (trust me g).  Musical credits will be at the end of the story.

Pairing:  B/A all the way

Spoilers:  All of Season 5/Season 2, and a few nasty rumors about 6/3.  This story takes place about six months after the finales, and shortly before Buffy's 21st birthday.

Rating:  PG13

Notes:  This story is a group effort, born of too little sleep and too much time spent immersed in Buffydom while at DragonCon 2001.   As part of that, we'd like to offer a special thanks to Cate from all of us.  Not only did she endure at least 18 hours "at the Copa," it was she who fearlessly hunted down Manilow fans at the breakfast table of AmeriSuites and elicited the last few lines of the song from them, thereby banishing the song demon.  We can only hope that we haven't damaged her unborn child's musical taste in the pursuit of this story. /P

Second Verse, Same as the First 

**By Gem, DeeJay & PJ**

Buffy carefully taped the last streamer into place on the molding and stepped back to survey her handiwork.

The Bronze was awash in a soft, dreamlike glow.  Strings of tiny pink lights swooped along the walls and arched over the doorways, some dangling in uncomfortably close proximity to the silver mylar balloons. Japanese lanterns were suspended in random spots across the ceiling over the dance floor, and the glittering confetti that liberally adorned the paper streamers reflected every particle of light available.  

"It's not exactly a party at the Ritz," she mused, "but it's not bad for 'best wishes from the hellmouth.'  Think the guests of honor will approve?" 

She didn't bother turning around to see if her best friend was still behind her before she solicited her opinion; Buffy knew beyond a doubt that Willow was there.  In the months since her return from the not-so-Great Beyond, the witch had seldom been more than 10 feet from her, unless someone else was there to take over guard duty.  Willow, and Xander, and Giles and Dawn and Anya and Tara; they were always right there by Buffy's side these days, helping her, encouraging her, supporting her.

Checking up on her.  

Okay, maybe the last part wasn't exactly fair to her friends, Buffy acknowledged silently.  They meant well; they were just trying too hard to make up for lost time.  If she was honest, what really bothered her was not the constant presence of her friends, but the absence of a certain someone else.  He, unfortunately, was still trying to give her "space." 

As though three months resting in a lonely grave wasn't enough quality time spent with herself. 

"It looks great, Buffy.  Really."  Willow's voice was, as expected, coming from about a foot behind the Slayer's back.  "Just beautiful. Xander and Anya are going to love it."  The witch paused for a moment, considering.  "Okay, Xander will love it.  Anya...well, she'll like the gift part."

Buffy forced down her rising tide of the blues and concentrated on the job at hand, namely gathering up the unused rolls of paper.  Willow was right; tonight was for Xander and Anya, to celebrate their engagement.  Those who had a future deserved to celebrate and those who didn't...hung crepe paper streamers.

"What did you end up getting them anyway?  I know you and Tara were working hard on something, but I've been too busy to get the details."

"You have been pretty busy, haven't you?  Since you, umm, got back."  Willow smiled sympathetically as she added a few extra pieces of tape to the string of a swaying balloon.  "Dawn, school, slaying, Dawn.  Doesn't leave much Buffy-time, does it?"

So much for banishing unhappy thoughts, the Slayer mused regretfully.  But after all these years they probably felt way too at home in her head to hit the road anyway.

"For there to be Buffy-time, there has to be a Buffy to have said time," she pointed out matter-of-factly.  "You know, aside from the sister, the student, the savior of the universe."  Buffy cocked her head to the side, making an effort for Willow's sake.  "You know, I think there's the beginning of a poem there.  Too bad my English professor wouldn't understand the Slayer part."

"Most people don't."

Willow's quiet words hit harder than the witch had intended.  Buffy stared down at the brightly colored rolls of crepe clutched tightly in her hands, thinking how pretty the decorations had looked in the store.  She had been delighted with the way the streamers sparkled and threw back all the light directed at them.  Now they seemed almost sad to her, as though they only reflected the glow because they weren't allowed to keep any of it for themselves.

"No, they don't" she agreed, almost absentmindedly.  "Most people don't get a lot of my life.  Lives," she corrected herself a moment later.

Willow sighed; this had rapidly become an old, and sore, point with the witch.  "Life, Buffy.  Just one.  If you had been really and completely...well, you know..."

"Dead, Will.  The word is dead."

"Well, if you had been, my spell wouldn't have brought you back as the same person."

"Yeah, I've heard this before," Buffy said abruptly.  "The monkey foot defense."

"It was a monkey's paw, and it's true.  Well, okay, so it's not true exactly," Willow hedged.  "It is fiction after all.  But it's right.  That was why I didn't want to let Dawn, umm, you know...when your mom died and...well, that means you just couldn't have been totally, umm, lifeless, and therefore you have one life."  

Buffy considered arguing the point further; it wasn't like Willow was the one with experience on her side.  But it hardly seemed worth the effort anymore.  They just didn't understand; they couldn't.

"You're right about one thing, Willow," she conceded instead.  "Nobody comes back from the dead the same person."  Buffy turned away and began packing the leftover decorating supplies in an empty cardboard box she retrieved from the floor.

"You know I'm willing to listen, any time you want to talk about it," Willow offered, gently resting her hand on her best friend's shoulder.  "We all are, even Anya.  Not that I think she'd be much help, but..."

Buffy stiffened and slipped away from Willow's grasp.  "I know, Will, and I appreciate it.  You've all tried really hard to understand what I went through, but you just can't.  No one who hasn't done the rising from the grave deal can quite get how truly...strange it all is.  Being back, moving on, putting things behind you.  It doesn't sound all that complicated in theory; I mean, what choice do you have?  But to actually do it...you kind of have to be there to understand."  She turned to face her friend, smiling weakly in apology.

"It's too bad Spike left town.  I guess he'd understand.  Sort of."  Willow grabbed a broom and started sweeping the dance floor, sending tiny golden flakes of confetti spinning into the air with each stroke.  "He did come back from the dead, after all.  He just came back still dead."

"No, it's better that he's gone," Buffy replied firmly.  "Having resurrection in common only gave him ideas, and he had enough of those already.  I'd rather shut the station down than send out the wrong signals anymore, even to Spike."

"You know for a little while I thought you kind of liked him."

"Spike?"  The disbelief in Buffy's voice rang through loud and clear.

"Well, not like-like," Willow backpedaled.  "Maybe 'like' is too...fuzzy...of a word."  She pondered her phrasing, and then grinned as a better term came to mind.  "How about lust?"

The Slayer instinctively started to deny yet again, but honesty compelled her delve a little deeper.  

"I don't know if 'lust' is exactly the right word either," Buffy explained slowly, sounding out her answer as she spoke.  "I guess for one or two crazy seconds I thought like you did, that we had something in common.  Then I realized it wasn't what he had in common with me that I was drawn to; it was what he had in common with...well, never mind."  She shook her head emphatically.  "I was wrong, and I'm glad I figured it out before things got even...wronger."

"It's kind of funny," Willow mused.  "I almost sort of miss him.  I mean, Spike; who'd have ever thought we'd miss him?"

"I've got an even stranger one for you," Buffy confessed.  "The Spike I almost sort of miss is the one who dedicated his afterlife to trying to kill me.  At least that version I could understand, in a nice, homicidal, 'me-Slayer-you-vampire' sense.  And I could beat him up whenever I felt like it without feeling guilty." She grinned in spite of herself. "That's what I miss."  

"But he was evil then," Willow protested.  "You can't miss evil."

"As opposed to the chip-challenged Spike ME that you miss?" Buffy asked curiously. "I know he can't help what he is...but my job description only says I have to kill vamps, not watch soaps with them."  She shook her head.  "That was never the part of 'normal' I was after." 

"Maybe so," Willow said noncommittally.  She dropped her head and pretended to focus her attention on the floor. "But if you're looking for someone else to understand what you've been through, how many choices do you have?"  

A slight sideways tilt of her lowered head allowed Willow to see the Slayer's face, and the quick rush of color that swept across Buffy's cheeks.  The witch smiled in quiet satisfaction; it didn't take magick to figure out where's Buffy's thoughts had turned, or why.

"So, umm, Willow," Buffy said quickly, anxious to shift the conversation away from her life.  "You still haven't told me what you and Tara got the happy couple."

Willow paused for a moment, and then decided to let her friend off the hook.  For now, at least.

"We wrote them a spell, and Tara set it to music.  Well, Tara and Giles did.  They're putting the finishing touches on it right now."  The witch beamed with pride.  "She's really a good musician in her own right, you know, but Giles wanted to help too."

"Can't shake that groupie thing, can you?"  Buffy smiled affectionately at her best friend.  "But what kind of spell?"

"Just a little protective spell."  Willow shrugged as she tried to find the best way to describe her gift.  "Sort of a Lilith Fair version of a four-leaf clover."  

"That's so sweet.  Jeeze, all I got them was a coffeemaker.  What gave you the idea?"

The broom faltered for a moment in Willow's suddenly nerveless hands.  "I guess I've been, umm, thinking a lot.  About the future.  Everybody's future."  The witch took firm grasp of both her emotions and the broom handle, and resumed the pleasantly mindless chore of sweeping.  "I want my friends to be happy, and safe, no matter what they're doing.  Or where they're going."

"Who's going anywhere?" Buffy asked dryly.  "Xander and Anya have jobs in town, and since I've tried death on for size twice now and can't get it to fit, I don't think I'm headed out of Sunnydale anytime soon either."

"Well, there's Giles," Willow said, choosing her words carefully.  "You know he's been talking more and more about England, and Olivia.  I don't think he's going to stay here forever, Buffy."

Buffy sighed heavily as she pictured Sunnydale without the comforting presence of her surrogate father.  

"I know.  He's been dropping a lot of hints lately, but I've been trying to avoid the subject.  I just know one of these days he's going to tell me I'm ready to be on my own, and that he's needed someplace else.  But we still need him; we all need him," she finished on a plaintive note.

"And Dawn's getting older," Willow reminded her unwillingly.  "I know she's only at band camp this week, but she's going to be old enough for college before you know it, Buffy.  Who knows if she'll want to go to UC Sunnydale either?"

Buffy threw a roll of crepe paper at her friend.  Dawn's continued growth was a source of pride for the Slayer, but she would prefer not to be reminded of the eventual end of that phase of her life.

"Are you trying to tell me our little girl's growing up, Ma?"

"And then there's Tara too." The witch swallowed hard before stoically continuing, "She's graduating this year, you know.  And I'm not sure...I mean, what does Sunnydale have to offer her, once she has her degree?"  Willow abruptly stopped her broom therapy and stared at Buffy, silently begging for reassurance.

"Umm, how about my wonderful Willow, who's crazy about her?" Buffy flipped the lid closed on the full box of leftover decorations and hurried over to give her best friend a hug.  "And who she's pretty nuts about in return, if I'm any judge of love.  Wait, no; let me rephrase that."

Willow smiled bravely, trying to keep at bay the tears that never seemed very far away these days.  

"I know she loves me, but we both know that's not always the deciding factor.  One of her chemistry profs has connections with a university lab in New York.  Tara could have a great job right out of college, one she's be perfect for."  She sighed and raised her palms upward to weigh the intangible options.  "Or she could stick around the hellmouth and maybe get brainsucked by another renegade hellgod while she's waiting for me to graduate."

"I know what I'd choose," Buffy said helpfully.

"Me too."  Willow shrugged as her hands fell to her sides in defeat.  "Give my regards to Broadway."

"Willow Rosenberg, you would not," Buffy scolded.  "And I don't think Tara would either, but even if she does, it's only a year.  It's not forever."

She had to believe somebody still got happy endings, even if Slayers did not.

"I know," Willow mumbled, staring intently at the heaps of golden dust settling at her feet.  "It's just that everything is changing all of the sudden, and I feel left behind.  Xander and Anya are getting married, and Giles might move back to England, and you seem so far away since you...came back.  And now Tara.  I wish things could be like they used to be."

"The good old days," Buffy agreed with a crooked smile.  "You, me and Xander hunting demons while Giles consulted his books."

As though it had ever been that simple to be the Slayer, or her friend.

"What's Giles consulting his books about now?" called a voice from the doorway.

Witch and Slayer both made hasty efforts to hide any evidence of tears as Xander and Anya strolled across the room.

"He can't be looking up decorating tips," Xander said, casting an appreciative eye around the brightly decorated club.  "This place is already beyond done.  Done to a 'T,' you might say...though I'm not sure what the 'T' is supposed to stand for.  Maybe I mean 'dressed to the nines'...but again, blanking on the underlying symbolism.  Anyway, the place looks great.  Isn't that right, Anya?" he hinted, nudging his strangely quiet fiancée with his elbow.

Anya jumped and turned to frown at Xander.  "There is no need to resort to such obvious prompts for acceptable behavior," she said with exaggerated patience.  "If you had given me time I would have composed an appropriate phrase indicating surprise."

Buffy grinned at Willow, feeling the last hint of sadness retreat in the face of Anya's raw honesty.

"We weren't actually going for surprise, but if it works for you..."  

"What Anya meant," Xander stressed, looking sternly at the lady in question, "was that it's surprising how great the place looks."  He paused for a moment.  "I mean it's surprising how much you could do with the place, considering what you had to work with.  Not that there's anything wrong with Christmas lights and crepe paper, you understand.  It's just...just that my girlfriend stuck my foot in my mouth and my toes are starting to tickle."  He shrugged helplessly before throwing himself on one of the sofas.  

"And this is a reason to pout because?"  Buffy hurried over to join him, draping a comforting arm around his shoulders.  "You know you don't have to worry about saying the right thing to Willow and I; it's not like we expect it on the first try anyway."

"It's part of your Xanderesque charm," Willow chimed in as she sat on his other side.

Anya continued to stroll around the Bronze, examining the decorations and testing their adherence to the walls.  "Well, Xander might not like the way I said it, but I was trying to be complimentary when I said it was surprising.  It looks like there's going to be a real party here."  She glanced over at her fiancé as a frown creased her forehead.  "It is appropriate to have an engagement party at a bar, isn't it?  I've never had one before.  Or even been to one, unless you count work, and then I was too busy turning the cheating bridegroom-to-be into a possum to really appreciate the details."

"It's fine, Anya," Xander soothed her.  "It's more of a club than a bar, and besides, it's where we always have parties."  He glanced at Buffy.  "When people will let us have parties, that is."

"Oh no, not again." Buffy held up her hands and quickly got to her feet.   "Once and for all, I don't want a birthday party.  I don't even want to hear the phrase 'Buffy's birthday' this year.  Getting older may be an achievement for a Slayer, but the actual celebration is the real killer."  She shook her head.  "Never again."

Xander waggled his index finger at her.  "Keep talking like that and you won't get your birthday present tonight, young lady."

"It's not like it won't keep," Anya said absentmindedly, twisting a Japanese lantern in one direction and then letting it spin back the opposite way.

"Hey, we are not keeping it until she's ready for it," Xander protested.  "This is a one-time offer, Buffy; made under the influence of Anya's new perfume and too much leftover fruitcake.  Not necessarily in that order."

"Excuse me but my birthday, even if I was celebrating it this year...which I'm not...isn't for another two weeks.  Why the rush?"

Xander's easy smile vanished, leaving behind a much older, and sadder man.  "Maybe you finally got us to understand that time isn't the only thing people waste, Buffy."

* * * * *

"So far, so good," Buffy murmured to Giles as she surveyed the crowded club.  "Almost everyone we invited came, I haven't had to break up a single fight, and no one has set off the sprinklers in the ladies room with a cigarette."  She paused.  "Yet."

Giles cupped a hand to his ear and turned towards her in confusion.  "I'm sorry, Buffy; what did you say?  This...music...makes it most difficult to carry on a conversation."  He frowned at the people grouped around the CD player in the corner, obviously not pleased with their selections thus far.  "Really, I can only assume the tremendous volume is designed to draw one's attention away from the lack of any other identifiable musical characteristics."

Buffy nodded sagely, having heard this speech, or ones like it, many times before.  "Yes Giles," she said loudly, "music was much more enlightened in your day; we all know that.  Poetry, vision...coded messages if you played the CD backwards..."

"Record," Giles corrected her wearily; he too recognized the repetitive nature of this discussion.  "We had records, as you know perfectly well."

Buffy felt a brief stab of pain at the memory of her mother's record collection, now carefully packed in boxes in the attic.   She could still see Joyce dancing around the kitchen to some silly David Cassidy song as they cleaned up after dinner; Dawn trying to grab the first clean serving spoon out of the drainboard to use as a microphone, while Joyce labored in vain to teach her daughters the words to...no, that wasn't right.   

She mentally shook her head, beset by a familiar frustration. Dawn hadn't been there at all, not really, and now Joyce wasn't here either.  

Buffy alone remembered.

"Uh huh, whatever," she droned, forcing herself to focus on Giles, who was here, instead of those who were not.  "They were totally cool, I'm sure.  Now, in the 21st century category, do you think this party is a go or not?"

Giles glanced around the club.  Everywhere he looked there were young people dancing to an off-tempo, off-key song, as they drank ice-cold beer and ate various multi-syllabic preservatives disguised as food.

"It appears to be an unqualified success," he said dryly.  "Certainly Xander and Anya seem to be having a good time.  I haven't heard her insult anyone all evening.  Except of course for the bartender," he added a moment later.  "And that first waiter; the one with the protruding, umm, earring."

"They don't call it an earring when you wear it there, Giles."  Buffy smiled at her Watcher with great affection, sensing his underlying contentment, despite the guarded praise.  "But you're right; they do seem to be having a good time.  Everybody does."

Giles cocked an eyebrow at her as he regarded her shrewdly. "Does 'everybody' include you, Buffy?  You seem a little quiet tonight, or is that just in comparison to the stereo?"

"I'm okay," she protested, waving a hand at the surrounding throng of people.  "Observe me having fun socializing."

"Yes, with your Watcher," he corrected her.  "With your Watcher, watching everyone else having fun socializing."

"But I don't know any of these people."  

Heads turned at her loud comment, which fell in the lull between songs.  Buffy flushed with embarrassment and continued the conversation in a quieter tone, befitting the new, softer CD now playing.  

"They're Xander's friends from work, and the cousins he's still speaking to, and a couple of what I'm assuming are people that Anya knows.  I mean I know she knows them, I'm just not too sure about the people part."  She gazed doubtfully at a passerby she could have sworn she had seen dipping a claw into the cheese puffs earlier.  "Not that it matters about the people part, you understand...but it makes it a little tougher to strike up a casual conversation.  We Slayer gals tend to get a certain rep that makes demons sort of, umm, uneasy."

"There are humans present," he pointed out gently.  "Of both sexes, as a matter of fact.  You could discuss hemlines with that young woman over there, perhaps, or you could ask the rather tall young man leaning against the bar to dance before he accidentally knocks that lantern down with his head and sets the club on fire."

It was the Slayer's turn to raise an eyebrow.  "Hemlines, Giles? You couldn't think of a more convincing hypothetical than..."

It hit her low and fast; that tingling sensation that swept under her skin whenever he came within her radar.  It had been months since she had seen him, had felt that sensation, but she had never forgotten.  Could never forget.

Angel.  Here.  Now.

She turned slowly, not seeing the indulgent smile on Giles' face as he recognized her "Angel-face."  She didn't see Willow and Tara nudge each other and whisper in delight as she moved towards, any more than she saw Xander waving a thumbs-up gesture at Wesley.  All she saw was Angel, heading straight for her in a similar state of single-mindedness.

"Buffy," he said simply when they met on the edge of the dance floor.  It was, as always, enough to knock her heart into her ribcage.

"Angel," she replied, a trifle breathlessly.  "What are you...why are you...do you know what this is?" she finally managed to ask.

Xander was beside her before Angel had a chance to reply.  The younger man clapped one hand on Buffy's shoulder and the other on Angel's.

"He sure does," Xander answered heartily for the vampire.  "This is your birthday surprise."  He leaned down close to her face, pressing a quick kiss on her cheek.  "Happy Birthday, Buff."

* * * * *

Buffy glanced in confusion from Angel to Xander, and then back to Angel.  "Birthday?  But this is your party.  Yours and Anya's."

"Yeah," Xander drawled, "but only because somebody wouldn't let us celebrate her birthday at the same time.  So I figured maybe you'd at least let me give you your gift tonight...even if he will keep."

"My gift?"  

She was a little embarrassed by the quaver in her voice, but the last gift anyone had told her about ended in a swan dive off of a very tall tower, and things had only gotten worse from there.  For Buffy Summers, once the original Material Girl,  'gift' was the ultimate of four-letter words.

"Xander thought it would be nice if we all made peace," Angel said quickly, sensing her unease.  "He invited Wes and Cordy and I to the party, so we could celebrate his engagement...and your birthday."

"The birthday part is pretty much just between us; I mean the old Scooby Gang. No cake, I swear."  Xander raised his hand in pledge.  "No party hats, no noisemakers...unless Wes can't hold his liquor..."

"I'll have you know..."

"And no birthday spankings," Xander continued over Wesley's indignant protest.  "That is, at least no public ones.  What happens in private...well, let's just say we're all grown-ups now, or trying to be.  So some of us are going to learn to mind our own business."

Buffy looked deep into Xander's brown eyes, searching for any hint of discomfort or regret at his actions.  He met her gaze squarely, acknowledging her suspicions with a slight quirk of his lips.

"I'm on the level, Buff; I promise.  I just thought it was time we all put the past behind us."  Xander glanced over at Angel, and smiled as he beheld the vampire's eyes firmly fixed on Buffy.  "I'm glad you guys could come.  Thanks."

Angel tore his attention away from his beloved and held out his hand to Xander.  "Thank you for inviting us," he replied formally.  "Cordelia sends her regrets."

Xander grinned as he shook Angel's hand.  "Cordelia sent a 'hell no!' you mean.  She told me so herself."

"She did want to come," Wesley said anxiously.  "She has an audition for a commercial coming up in a few days, however, and she wanted to rehearse."

"And being civil to me wouldn't have counted as acting?"

"She thought it would be awkward," Angel said, a slight hint of anger coloring his voice.  "She didn't want to spoil it for you or Anya...or for Buffy, for that matter."

Xander opened his mouth to offer a sarcastic, but in his opinion rather witty, comment on Cordelia's ideas of awkwardness.  He was stopped, however, by the look in Buffy's eyes.  

In the three months since the Slayer had returned from the grave, and the two years of emotional isolation that preceded it, Xander had grown used to her silences, and her distant looks.  He had spent many a night trying to break through those barriers, but he had know no more success than any of Buffy's other friends.

Until tonight.

Tonight she was looking at him, at Wesley, and mostly at Angel, with the hungry eyes of someone too long from the table.  Those eyes reflected emotions Xander hadn't even been sure she could still feel after all this time, and it was to see those eyes again that Xander had sent for Angel in the first place.

Time to live up to your words, or eat them, Harris, he grumbled silently.  Other than having Anya in his life forever, being an adult suddenly seemed a lot less fun.

"Okay," he sighed, "Uncle.  Cordy meant well, just like I meant well.  Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to find my favorite recovering demon, and leave Buffy to enjoy hers."  

Wesley cleared his throat as Xander left in search of Anya.

"Yes, well, I think perhaps I'll just find Mr. Giles...that is to say Rupert...I don't suppose I have to call him Mr. Giles anymore.  We are, after all, both grown men and former colleagues and...you don't think he'll mind if I call him Rupert, do you?"

At first Buffy thought the question was addressed to her, but it was obviously from Angel's dark eyes that Wesley was seeking an answer.

"If he lets me call him Rupert, he'll let anyone," Angel said with a crooked smile.  "I saw him go over to talk to Willow as we came in."

Wesley nodded briskly, the confidence he could assume and then shed so rapidly now firmly back in place.  "Right.  Willow.  It will be good to see her again too...under happier circumstances."

Buffy saw the shadow cross Angel's face at Wesley's reminder, and reached out instinctively to take her beloved's hand.

"Hey," she said softly.  "I'm here."

Angel drew a deep breath and squeezed her hand tightly.

"Yeah, you are.  And so am I."  He glanced around the room, trying to recover the composure she could demolish with a single smile.  "And we're at a party, with music and dancing...and we're just standing here like a couple of idiots."  He lifted up the hand that still clutched hers.  "Would milady care to dance?"

She paused for a moment, unsmiling, as she considered his words, and all that was still unsaid.

"For now," she allowed, stepping into his cool embrace.  "But the night is still on the not-needing-dentures-and-a-cane side of the clock, so be prepared."

* * * * *

Xander watched Buffy and Angel from the far edge of the room, as he listened with half an ear to Anya's running commentary on the refreshments.

"...do you think the shrimp are going to go bad if they just sit out like that?  Because you know they never look bad; they just quietly rot inside and then some unsuspecting shrimp-lover who can't remember the number of hours he has been at a party, and calculate how much of that time the shrimp has been sitting out without refrigeration just pops one in his mouth and before you know it we're spending the night chauffeuring queasy party guests to the emergency room and calling our lawyers, which we don't even have, to defend against a lawsuit that could have all been avoided if we had simply thrown the shrimp out early."  She paused for a breath.  "So do you think they're okay like that?"

Xander heard the word 'shrimp,' and something about lawyers, but the majority of his attention was fixed on his best friend's smile as she danced with her ex, and on the remarkable fact that it no longer made him angry.

"You know, An," he said, draping an arm around his girlfriend's shoulders, "I have been a very good boy today.  I think I deserve a reward when we get home."  He waggled his eyebrows and leered at her.  "A really big reward."

Anya followed the direction of his eyes.  "A reward for not behaving in a pathetically jealous schoolboy fashion and attempting to keep Angel away from Buffy even though you no longer want her for yourself?" 

In typical Anya fashion, she did not sound angry with him, merely curious at the quirks of human nature.

"Uh, yeah, I guess you could put it that way," Xander admitted with a pained grin.  Part of the reason he was so crazy about Anya was that she saw his baser side, and loved him in spite of it...but her love could be a little rough on his ego at times.

"You did well," she allowed.  "Now that you have brought them back together, you can all stop worrying about Buffy and get on with your lives."

Xander looked at her in surprise.  "I don't think it's going to be quite that simple, An.  Sure he's here and she's here, but I don't think they count as a 'they're here' yet."

"I didn't say they were.  What I said was that they can get on with their lives, and fix their own problems.  And we can live our life."

"Buffy is still part of that life."  Xander was getting nervous; his sweet (well, perhaps not sweet, but increasingly humane) fiancée was expressing some dangerous, and heretofore unsuspected, ideas.  "Buffy, Willow, Giles, Tara, Dawn...even Angel and Wes are still a part of our life, Anya.  They always will be."

Anya sighed; men could be so dense sometimes.  "Of course they will, but things will be different after we're married.  Trust me; I've seen what too allowing too many 'poker nights with the boys' can do to a relationship.  I hardly think that 'patrol night with the girls' will be any more constructive."

"Anya..."

"Willow has Tara, and now Buffy has Angel again," she said, overriding his protest.  "Giles is probably going back to England, and Olivia.  You have a job, I have a...I have a job with an employer who will probably be going back to England and Olivia," she whispered in horror.  "I'll be unemployed.  Again.  And I don't even have a new seventeen-year-old body to list as an asset this time.  It's depreciated."

"Anya..." he tried again.

She held up her hand and drew a deep breath.  "You're right; we have to focus.  Maybe Giles will sell us the Magick Box.  Or maybe we'll just start having babies right away, and then I won't have time to worry about a job."  

She smiled brightly; problem solved.

"Babies?" Xander asked with a wince.  "As in more than one?"

"Presumably."  Anya looked at him in surprise.  "You always make mistakes with the first one, or so I'm told.  It can take several repetitions before you produce a child who meets all of your expectations."  She frowned.  "Or is that pottery?  I forget."

"So we're talking more than just two now," Xander continued bravely, past the rapidly growing knot in his stomach.  "Several kids, possibly in the near future.  Kids who will keep us too busy to help Buffy and the rest of the gang save the world.  Is that what I'm hearing here?"

"We can help save the world occasionally," she answered, sensing, though not fully understanding, his concern.  "We just can't make it a regular date or anything.  I'd say once a month would be the most we could commit to."

* * * * *

"They really do look well together, don't they Mr. Gi...Rupert?"  Wesley blushed as he stumbled over the words, but to his everlasting gratitude, Giles pretended not to notice.  The younger man cleared his throat and tried again, resolving to think before he spoke in the future.  "It is gratifying to see the possibility of a happy resolution at last. We weren't sure for a while if Angel would even allow himself to go on, after Buffy...well, after Willow told us what had happened with that Glory person.  He was, to say the least, quite despondent."

"It was a difficult time for all of us," Giles said sharply.  

He tried not to dwell on those months of bitter regret, especially not when he could see the outcome shining before him in all her youthful splendor, but sometimes the drag of those memories was too great.  But seeing the quick flash of bewildered hurt in Wesley's eyes, he realized he realized another side to the truth of his own words.

"It was very hard on everyone," Giles acknowledged, "but yes, I imagine more so for Angel than the rest of us.  And of course it must have been difficult for you and Cordelia to watch."

"We tried our best to raise his spirits, but in the end he had to find his own way again.  Fortunately he managed to do so before Buffy came...back...and came to see him."  Wesley shook his head, remembering those first days and nights when they watched Angel's every move, counted all the stakes in the hotel, hid all the radios and the TV in an attempt to conceal the expected time of the next sunrise.  "I can't imagine her reaction if she had seen him in his original state."

"Yes, she had quite enough to do dealing with her own resurrection; she didn't need to be responsible for anyone else's healing.  But she is...much better now, I think."  Giles watched his charge fondly, noting the relaxed lines of her body as she circled the dance floor in Angel's arms.  "Perhaps she can begin to get on with her life again."

"And this doesn't bother you, that she might still want Angel to be a part of that?"  Wesley eyed the elder Watcher curiously.  "There was a time you were even more opposed to the idea than I."

"We don't know what part Angel can play in her life," Giles said swiftly.  "The curse remains an issue, to the best of my knowledge; perhaps an insurmountable one."  He sighed, yielding to the inevitable.  "Still, to see her smile like she is now...I am willing to grant that his presence may be required in some guise or another; a friend if not a lover."

Silently, he also granted that his grant was no longer required.  Buffy was a woman now, not a child, and she would make her own decisions.  He could advise her as a friend, and worry about her as a surrogate parent, or vice versa.  Ultimately, however, he had to acknowledge that he had achieved the goal of every conscientious parent:  expendability.   It was a humbling, and ageing, experience.

"I confess I have certain reservations regarding the curse myself," Wesley murmured.  "Perhaps it would be best, during what appears to be a lull in overt demonic activity, to concentrate the efforts of both of our...teams...to discovering some sort of...sealant."  He glanced significantly at Giles.  "Before anything irrevocable occurs."

"I think they both know the risk," Giles protested.  "Not that I'm averse to your suggestion, but surely we don't need to concentrate the energies of roughly a dozen people in the aid of sexual freedom for two of their number?"  

"Mr. Giles...Rupert...surely you remember what it is like to be so...passionately devoted...so consumed by your emotions...that worldly concerns scarcely register upon your consciousness?"

Giles spared him a withering glare before he returned his attention to the couple in question, still tightly intertwined on the dance floor.  

"I'm not quite so old as all that, Pryce," he sniffed.  "If anything, I am surprised that you would be so conversant in the subject.  Or has the Los Angeles smog had a liberating effect upon you?"

Wesley thought of Virginia, his lamentably former girlfriend; she of the fiery red curls and soothing common sense.  He had spent many tender hours in her company, and for a time he believed the strength of their connection would see them through any storm.

It was, however, a fear of how intense the storms of his life could be that had driven Virginia away, much as Buffy had once fled to the apparent safety of her former soldier companion.

"You will find I have changed a great deal, Rupert," Wesley said softly.  "I have learned who my friends are, and their true value.  It is a lesson I do not intend to forget."

Giles smiled ruefully and clapped the younger man on the back.  "Well said, Pryce...I mean Wesley.  Well said."

* * * * *

Buffy drifted along in cool, pink cloud.  She could feel nothing but the solidity of Angel's body against hers, heard nothing but the occasional rumble of his voice in her ear.  For this one small space of time, nothing existed except they two.

At least until she chanced to lift her head and realized they were surrounded by a multitude of dearly loved, and deeply interested, faces.

"Angel," Buffy murmured, tucking her head back into his shoulder.

"Mmm," was his only response.

She tried again.

"Angel.  Everybody's staring at us."

"At you," he mumbled into the curtain of her long blonde tresses.  "Can't blame them for that."

She pummeled his shoulder lightly as she laughed.  It felt so good to laugh with him again, and yet so strange.  She took a moment to bask in the wonder of the experience before she collected her thoughts.

"They're staring at both of us.  Together.  As us," she emphasized, when at last she was ready to speak.  "I feel like we're bugs under a microscope or something."  She wrinkled her nose.  "And you know I don't like bugs."

Angel roused himself with difficulty, raising his cheek from the warm pillow of her head as he tried to draw his spirit back into his body and out of the aether where it seemed to be floating.  This all seemed so unreal, literally too good to be true.  To be with Buffy again, to feel her arms wound around his neck and her hair spilling over his fingertips was more than he had ever dreamed possible just a few short months ago.  Simply seeing her face when he walked in the door had pushed his senses into overdrive, and he was having precious little success in reclaiming control.

Nor did he want to; not at this moment.

"Maybe we should leave.  Just for a little while," he added hastily, sensing her instinctive protest.  "This night is about Xander and Anya, and if they're all really staring at us..." he glanced around, "as I can see that they are doing, then it's become about us.  And that's not fair."

A smile tugged at her lips as she listened to his sweetly reasonable tone, and heard all the unspoken desires beneath it.  

"You're right," she conceded with a full-fledged grin.  "We're being selfish.  So the best thing to do is take our selfish selves out of here until we've learned our lesson."

Angel felt a warning quake from deep within his fragile soul.  This was the dangerous part; this was where he set them both up for potential heartbreak.  And yet, looking into her suddenly bright hazel eyes, he could find no regret within himself.

"Okay, who gets to break it to Xander?" he asked instead.

"Coward," she scoffed.  "I'll tell him.  I'll tell him...we're going out for a walk.  And a talk."  The grin faded from her face, replaced with a calm resolve.  "Because I think we really need to talk.  Seeing you tonight, and knowing what we're all here celebrating...it's made me start thinking some things.  Not just us-things, but...thing-things."

Angel twined one long finger in a strand of her silken hair.  When he was with her, he needed to touch her, and when he touched her...apocalypses happened.  But he was tired of fighting a battle he couldn't win, with loneliness his ultimate prize.  He had to learn to trust himself around her, or he was destined to live forever in the past.

"I'd like to hear about them," he said softly, brushing her cheek with the tip of the golden lock.  "If you want to tell me."

She looked away for an instant.  "I'm not sure I can," she confessed, "but I think...I think I'd like to try."

* * * * *

To Be Continued


	2. Chapter 2

Second Verse, Same as the First Part 2 

**By Gem, DeeJay & PJ**

Angel watched Buffy wend her way across the dance floor, her back arrow-straight and head held high, as though she was marching into battle.  And in a sense she might be.  For all that Angel believed in the sincerity of Xander's invitation, he knew that starting over with the Scoobies would be no easy matter.  If, indeed, starting over was what they were doing.  

Or should be doing.

He almost hadn't accepted Xander's invitation; Cordelia, of all people, had to push him into it.  He had been so lonely for Buffy all this time in LA, but he tried to make a new life for himself, as she had done here in Sunnydale; he wanted her to be proud of him.  When she died he thought that life was over, along with hers; he believed the grief and the guilt would surely kill him.  But they didn't, and somehow that made it worse.  

Finally he had started to come to terms with it all...and then she walked into his office.  Alive and well, and oh so beautiful; he hadn't believed his eyes at first.  But when she hesitantly put her arms around him and pressed her warm lips to his cheek, he knew it was real.

And he knew it would begin all over again, if he let it.  

Watching her walk away, thinking of the many times (too many times) one or the other of them had kept on walking, he couldn't escape the potential of that word 'if.'  He just wasn't sure if the potential was for great joy...or total disaster.

* * * * *

"So, how do you like your gift so far?" Xander asked Buffy with a grin and a wink.  "I was going to wrap him up, but it's tough to find black leather wrapping paper on short notice."

"You should have tried that store over on Reber Street," Anya suggested absently, the larger portion of her mind still occupied with the impermanence of shrimp.  "You know the one I mean."

"This gift," Buffy emphasized, after raising an eyebrow at the blushing Xander, "is wonderful.  So wonderful, in fact, that I kind of want to enjoy him by myself."  She saw the lightning flash of hurt in her old friend's eyes and quickly added, "For just a little while, Xand.  I know he can't stay long.  I mean, he has a business to run and I have school starting up again and...our usual thousand things that get in the way."

She started to throw her hands in the air in defeat, but turned the gesture into a shrug instead.  The time for railing against Fate was over, at least when it came to her love life.  Fate would do what it had to do...and so would she.

"But he's here now and I want to talk to him," Buffy made herself say calmly.  "I need to talk to him.  And I need to do it where we can be quiet and think about what we're saying.  Which is to say, not here."

Xander was silent for a moment, also trying to be quiet and think about what he needed to say.  "I do understand, Buffy," he said at last.  "I even kind of figured you guys would want some time alone.  It's just...well, I kind of lied before."  

He winced, waiting for any potential Slayerly displays of temper.  Seeing only slight suspicion, however, he plunged ahead.  

"It's about the birthday party thing.  We, umm, kind of planned one for you at home.  Your home.  Tonight, after this party."  He backed up a few steps and held up his hands defensively, seeing the sparks start to light in her eyes.  

"It's just the old gang, I swear."  The pitch of his voice rose from both nervousness and breathlessness as he hurried to explain before she could object. "I know Dawn isn't here right now, but we figured, I mean Willow and I figured...and Giles too, actually, that since Angel was going to be here, and Wes, and we thought Cordy, that maybe we could try for a nice quiet pre-birthday celebration."  

"Pre-birthday?  As in 'we love you so much we couldn't wait two more weeks for cake'?"

"Well..." he drawled, "Who knows?  Maybe the bad-birthday mojo comes from celebrating it on the right day.  You know, celebrating that you actually were born on that day.  We're more like celebrating the fact that you will be born, on a certain future day of a...previous year."

She stared at him.  "That is the dumbest thing I've ever heard."

Xander shrugged and sighed in defeat.  "Yeah, well, the logic part was Willow's department.  I was in charge of refreshments."

Buffy silently counted to ten.  She had specifically asked them not to give her a party, and they had done it anyway.  Which meant she had reason to be annoyed, but it also meant she had friends who loved her...and probably a three-day supply of junk food taking up most of her dining room table.

"Fine," she said, after proving her mathematical skills not once but twice.  "I'll tell Angel that we can talk the next time he can put off the forces of darkness long enough to drive two hours to see me."  She punched a fist in the air in mock enthusiasm.  "Tonight we party."

Xander reached out and gave her an impulsive hug.  "Buff, I swear it won't be that bad.  Go, dance with the man a few times.  Convince him to try that weird English beer Giles made the bartender stock for tonight."

"No one else will drink it," Anya confided.  "Not even Wesley."

"In an hour or so this party will break up," Xander continued, after making a shushing gesture at Anya.  "You guys can take a nice long walk back to your house when it's over, and talk on the way.  By the time you get there, we'll be all set up for your party."

"Okay," Buffy grumbled, her tone at odds with the slight smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.  "I suppose I can think of worse ways to kill an hour than dancing with Angel."  

She turned away from Xander and Anya, intent on returning to Angel before she was forced to start beating off female party guests trying to latch on to him; she'd seen some of Xander's cousins, and they looked like bleeders to her.  But she had only taken a few steps before a question crept into her mind, forcing her to retrace her path back to the guests of honor.  

"Umm, Xand?  One teensy little point; just, you know, for clarification. Did Angel know about this birthday party?"

"Are you serious?" Anya replied carelessly before her intended could speak for himself.  "We could barely get him to come to the engagement party; Cordelia said there was no way he'd come if he knew about the birthday."

Xander glanced nervously at Buffy's suddenly frozen face.  "I don't think Anya meant that quite the way it sounded, Buff.  He wanted to come and see you; he really did.  I think he was just nervous.  And we figured with it being your birthday and all...I mean, I can't believe I'm saying this, but he got burned that birthday too, Buffy."  He took her stiff hand in his own and squeezed tightly.  "Give the guy a chance. You're not the only one with scars, you know."  

* * * * *

Angel met Buffy at the edge of the dance floor.

"Did you make our excuses?" he asked quickly, confused by the remote look in her eyes.  "Were they mad?"

"No," she mumbled.  "I mean yes, I tried, and no they weren't mad.  But they don't want us to go."  

She gave him a twisted smile, suddenly unsure of how he really felt about leaving the party with her.  Maybe this was for the best as far as he was concerned; maybe she had misread things, and he was just interested in getting away from a crowd of people, not in being alone with her.  

"I...I don't want to offend them," Angel said hesitantly.  "I appreciate them inviting me, especially Xander.  And if you want to stay..." he deliberately paused, thinking perhaps this was the out she'd been searching for.  Maybe he had misread the signals he thought she'd been sending him; it wouldn't be the first time.

"I think it would be best," Buffy answered, biting her lip.  "They want to do a little, umm, party for me at the house afterwards.  You know, for my birthday."   She shrugged, desperately trying to project nonchalance in the face of an extremely...chalant situation.  

Angel waited patiently for the other shoe, the one that was suddenly making her so nervous.

Cautiously encouraged by his lack of flight, Buffy continued, "Xander suggested that we stay for a while and then walk back to the house for the party.  That way we could still talk in private.  If you, umm, still want to, that is.  I mean I don't want to keep you."

"Buffy, I came to see you," he protested, forcing back the little voice in his head that was urging restraint.  "I want to spend some time with you.  And if that means spending another hour here, then that's fine.  Whatever you want."

"And then we'll walk, I mean talk," she said slowly, a little confidence returning to her attitude.  He had come, to see her; and he was staying, to see her.  There might be something to this whole non-birthday-birthday idea after all.

* * * * *

"So you really think they're okay?"  Willow turned anxiously to Tara, seated beside her on a sofa in the corner of the club.  "I kind of had my doubts about all this when Xander came up with the idea.  I mean, Xander, fixing Buffy up with Angel; that just has to spell trouble...or maybe demonic possession."  She smiled brightly, almost relieved by the thought.  "I think we could handle demonic possession, though...do you think that's what it is?"  

"I think maybe he just wants Buffy to be happy." 

Willow looked puzzled by her lover's answer.  "Well sure, we all do."

"And sometimes that happiness means hanging on tight to things, and sometimes...it means letting go," Tara continued softly.  

Willow looked away.  "And where's the crystal ball to tell you what time this is?"

Tara squeezed Willow's hand as it rested on her lap.  "I know you're worried...you're a good friend and good friends worry.  But I think...I mean I know...I mean Buffy is a big girl now, and she needs to start taking care of herself again."  She drew a deep breath and risked direct eye contact.  "We have other things we need to think about."

Willow could almost feel the great black cloud of the future swooping over them.  This was Sunnydale, after all, where only the demons got to live happily ever after...on the flesh of everyone else.

"You're right," she agreed nervously.  "We have to decide when to sing our song."

"Willow..."  

Tara tried to keep the desperation from her voice, but she was so confused.  She had always relied on Willow to keep her centered, but lately her beloved had become an unlikely means of support.

"We could do it while everyone is still here," Willow rushed on, pretending not to hear Tara's protest.  "But it doesn't exactly sound like a normal song; the lyrics are pretty spellish.  I think Xander might have some trouble explaining it to the guys he works with.  "

"Xander has trouble explaining _us_ to the guys he works with," Tara commented dryly, her attention momentarily diverted.

Willow could feel the tension ease fractionally and mentally patted herself on the back.  She and Tara were successfully discussing the future.  Granted it was the very, very near future, as in the next two hours...but it still counted. 

"So we probably shouldn't do it now then," she agreed with a sigh of relief.  "I'm thinking we should wait until it's just the gang.  You know, when we're all back at Buffy's later."

Tara looked at her steadily.  "All right," she agreed evenly, "later sounds good.  But not too much later.  Please."

Willow knew they weren't talking about the song anymore, and the knot in her stomach re-solidified with a vengeance.  

* * * * *

Eventually the party guests began to thin out, as the hour grew late and babysitters grew expensive.  Buffy and Angel tried to blend into the general exodus in order to slip out unobserved, but Anya's loud wishes of a romantic, yet speedy, walk put an end to that idea.  It was with many pairs of concerned eyes following them that they made good their escape.

"Well, that was fun," Buffy said sarcastically as Angel firmly closed the door behind them.

"It was a nice party," Angel answered mildly.  "You should be proud."  

After a brief internal struggle, Angel held out his hand with the intention of taking Buffy's, but she was too consumed by her own war of nerves to see it.  By the time she realized his hand was extended, Angel had rethought the gesture and turned it into a sweeping motion, designed to offer her the lead in their stroll.  With a sigh, she stepped off of the curb and began to head for Revello Drive.

"It was a nice party," she agreed, "but I just wish we hadn't been the floor show."

"I'm sorry," he apologized instantly, the old familiar guilt rising like a tide within him.  "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable."

She stopped at once and turned to face him.  Without thinking, one hand rose to clutch the sleeve of his leather duster. 

"Angel, no," she said swiftly.  "I didn't mean it like that.  I am so glad that you came; I'm so glad that they'd have to invent a new sub-species of glad just to describe the particular version of it that I am.  But I wish it...I mean you and I...us...didn't attract that kind of attention."  Her hand fluttered back down to her side.  "I just wanted things to be nice and..."

"Normal," he finished heavily, fixing his dark eyes upon her upturned face.

"No," she snapped, and then let out a gusty sigh.  "I mean yes, but not the way you mean.  I don't even know what the word means anymore; I don't think I ever did."  Buffy shook her head to clear it, trying to verbalize thoughts still being born.  "One thing I do know is that I'd like it if my life wasn't the focus of all my friends' every waking moment.  Moments.  Whatever.  Anyway, I want to be...unobtrusive...at least for a little while."

He smiled involuntarily, his hand rising to fleetingly caress her cheek.  "Never gonna happen," he said softly.

She drew a ragged breath; it was amazing what the slightest brush of his skin against hers could do to a girl's nervous system.

"I also know that I really am happy you came here tonight," she murmured, staring deep into his eyes.  As though pulled by an invisible string, she took a step forward, and then another, until the lapel of his coat brushed against her upper arm.  "I wasn't expecting it at all, but now that it happened, I can't imagine...I can't imagine what it would have been like without you."

"I can't imagine either," he confessed, life without her the furthest thing from his mind at the moment.

A blast of sound from behind them scattered Angel's thoughts as the door to The Bronze swung open and more party guests appeared on the street.

"I guess we should start back," he said quickly, automatically taking Buffy by the elbow as he turned to face the street.  "We, uh, don't want to give them even more to talk about by being late, do we?"

In his heart, Angel was almost hoping she would say to hell with what their friends thought, but his brain forced him to acknowledge an equally strong feeling of relief when she began to walk with him.  He had never counted strength of will among his own possessions, and the distraction created by the scent of her perfume wafting through the night air was doing nothing to change his opinion of himself.

"I'm, umm, really sorry Cordy couldn't come with you," Buffy stammered, mentally flailing for something to banish the strained silence suddenly enveloping them.  "We had kind of a nice talk when I saw you in LA."

Angel smiled as his fingers firmly gripped the inside of Buffy's elbow through her coat.  Even this small contact was enough to make him a little giddy.

"She felt bad about it, hard though that is to believe."  Even in the uneven moonlight he could see the skeptical look on Buffy's face; it made him laugh.  "Seriously, she did.  But she felt a little awkward about it...and she really did have an audition coming up.  She figured it wasn't the right time to wallow in strong emotions."

"Xander still gets her that worked up?"  Buffy raised an eyebrow.  "If that's true, why did she let him get away?"

She regretted the words the instant they left her mouth, but there was no calling them back.  She waited in silent dread for Angel's response.

"Maybe emotion isn't always the best guide," he said softly, staring straight ahead at the dimly lit pavement.  "Especially strong ones. And, uh, anyway," he continued, trying in vain to shake off the chains of the past, "I'm not sure it was Xander she was afraid to see.  It's hard for her to see her folks now; they're not exactly close.  To be honest, I don't think they ever were."

"It's so weird to hear you talk about her like that," Buffy marveled.  "You seem to know her so well now, and to hear her talk, you're her best friend.  Don't get me wrong," she added quickly.  "I think it's nice.  It's just...weird."

"For me too," he confessed with a small smile.  "It's not what I was expecting when I ran into her in LA.  Back then I was thinking, 'Hey, I actually know someone at this party.'  Now I actually know her."

A thin trickle of jealousy began to thread through Buffy's veins.  

"So I guess you guys are really close, aren't you?"  

She didn't dare to look at him, thinking her face would give her away.  In truth it was her evasiveness that struck the familiar chord with her former boyfriend.

"Yeah, we are," Angel agreed carefully.  "It's almost like having a sister again."  He paused, realizing the truth of his words.  "I've missed that."

Buffy smiled as she heard an unmistakable, and reassuring, honesty in his voice.  "Sisters can be pain sometimes, but you do miss them when they're not there."

"So where is Dawn tonight?" Angel asked, trying to get the conversation back on safer ground.  "She wasn't at the party, was she?"

Buffy looked at him in astonishment.  "That's right; I forgot you don't remember her like the rest of us.  I still don't understand why the monks left you out of the pool."

He tried for a casual shrug, hoping he sounded less hurt than he had felt when she first told him about Dawn.  "I wasn't in your life at the time; I'm guessing they didn't think I ever would be again.  Why bother?"

"It wasn't for them to decide," she flared.

"Buffy, I didn't mean to..."

"No, it's me; I'm sorry," she said hastily.  "And maybe I should be grateful you didn't know, and that I knew you didn't know.  At least it helps to explain why my dad didn't come rushing back to get Dawnie after Mom died.  He thought he had one daughter, who was old enough to take care of herself."

"You were only twenty," Angel retorted, anger roughening his tone.  "He should have been here."  

_'I should have been here_,' was his silent echo.

"I had you," she responded softly, seeming to hear his troubled thoughts.  "The night I needed you the most, you were here."

"I'm not so sure about that," he mumbled, not daring to meet her eyes.

"I am," Buffy said firmly.  "You always are.  And not just for me."  She cast about for a way to make him see his worth as she did.  "Cordelia told me about what you did for her in the pie plate dimension."

"Pylea," he corrected her with a faint smile.  "And I wasn't alone."

Buffy nodded slowly as yet another uncomfortable memory seeped under her protective armor.  "That's true.  You had Wes with you, and your friend Gunn and that Lorne guy and...umm, Fred.  That is her name, right?  Fred?"

She glanced at him sideways, trying to catch the first expression that crossed his face at her mention of the name.

"That's her name," he agreed smoothly. 

He was back to being his old, cryptic self, she noted crossly.  Well, two could play at the stealth game.

"How is she doing, by the way?  She seemed a little, umm, colorful, when I saw her a few months ago.  Is she feeling any more...pastel now?"

"She's doing a lot better."  Angel's chin rose as he unconsciously straightened his back; Fred's progress gave him a certain amount of justifiable pride.  "She's back at her old job, and she's even got an apartment of her own."

"That's great."  Buffy was not feigning enthusiasm; this was truly good news in her book.  "So she's moved out, and she's probably not helping out with your caseload anymore...you know, if she's working fulltime.  I guess you don't see much of her at all then?"

"Oh she's still around," he answered casually.  "It's still a little hard for her to make friends, after all she's been through.  Not many people can understand."

"Yeah, I know how that goes," she murmured.

"She just needs time," he said softly, as much for Buffy's sake as the absent Fred's.  

"And you." 

He shook his head emphatically.  "No, not anymore.  I think I needed her more than she ever needed me." 

It wasn't what Buffy wanted to hear.

"She was broken, Buffy; and so was I.  Helping her put me back together." Angel grinned crookedly.  "More or less."

"Then I'm glad you found each other."  

That was honest, she told herself.  Give or take a little seething jealousy.

"Fred gave me a chance to put something right," he continued, doggedly trying to set things straight.  "I wanted to help her, not just because she's a nice person, and not just because that's what I do.  She...well, it sounds kind of crazy, and you may be the only person who would understand this, but...in some small way she reminds me of Dru.  Only a little more stable...and a lot less homicidal."

"So helping Fred pick up all of her marbles..." Buffy said, nodding to show her understanding.

"...makes up in some small way for scattering Dru's," Angel finished with a sigh.  "It probably sounds dumb, but...."

"Angel, no," she said swiftly, everlastingly grateful he couldn't see the crimson stain now flooding her cheeks.  "I think it's great that you want to...fix...things.  And actually yeah, I can see a certain resemblance, right where that frontal lobe used to be.  I just thought...well, you can probably guess what I thought when I saw her living at the hotel, and hanging all over you, and you not seeming to mind."

He forbore from mentioning one of his previous visits to Sunnydale, when Buffy had exhibited a similarly casual attitude to Riley's constant presence.

"You thought you'd been replaced," he said simply.

She hung her head; it wasn't always easy talking to someone who could see through her so clearly, right down to the dark little secret places of her soul that she could barely face herself.

"I guess I kind of did.  I...I always used to be the one you turned to when you hurt, and suddenly it was Cordy and Fred and...I felt like I had no place in your life."

"Buffy, when you died, I didn't even want a life."  Angel couldn't keep the shock from coloring his voice; he thought she knew.  "For the first few nights, more than that really, I thought maybe it was time to...make you laugh at my pain," he trailed off in confusion.  "I'm so glad my thoughts of suicide amuse you."

Buffy lifted her head and covered her mouth, trying to hide her inadvertent smile.  "Angel, I'm sorry; it's not that.  Really it's not.  It's just...you said I died."

"You did."

"I know," she said urgently.  "I know that, and you know that, and so does everyone else, but you and I are the only ones who'll admit what really happened.  They say I was 'gone' or 'away' or, and this is my favorite in the close but no carcinogens category: 'hanging at the Restfield.'  Like it was a club or something."

Angel was frightened by the desolation in her voice, even as she tried to joke her way off of the subject.  It was as though one minute she was here with him in mind as well as body, and the next moment she was adrift in dark waters while he watched helplessly from the shore.  

"People are afraid of the word, Buffy," he said gently.  "It lets in demons even you can't conquer."

"Even Anya won't say I was dead," Buffy complained.  "She almost did once, but Willow stepped on her foot so hard she broke her little toe.  Anya's toe, I mean.  Anyway, you're the only one who'll say the truth.  You know what's real."  She watched the shifting patterns of moonlight on the road before them.  "I envy that."

"It wasn't easy," he protested.  "I made myself do it, and I choked on the word every time.  It's a lot simpler now, with you standing here beside me...looking so alive."  He stopped walking and turned to face her fully.  

* * * * *

"Can you see them?"  Anya pushed Willow out of the way and took the witch's place at the living room window.  Holding the curtain wide, for all to see, she announced, "They're out at the far end of the lawn.  I think he's about to kiss her...no, wait, I think they saw me."

"Then don't you want to back away from the window, hon?" Xander asked gently.  "You know, so it doesn't look quite so much like we're spying."

"But I want to know when they're coming in," she explained simply, making no move to close the drape.  "How else will we know when it's appropriate to yell 'surprise!'?"

"We'll just have to wing it," Xander soothed her.  He crossed over to the window and gently pulled her away towards the dining room.  "And speaking of wings, who wants some?"

"I must say Xander is being rather a good sport about all this," Wesley commented under his breath to Giles.  "I realize this little reunion was at his instigation, but...it is still quite surprising."

"He's matured a great deal since you left Sunnydale, Wesley.  They all have."  Giles glanced around the living room, surveying his assembled 'children' as they amiably squabbled over the party treats. "It has been a privilege to be some small part of the process these past six years.  I'm..."  He took off his glasses and absentmindedly rubbed them clean.  "I'm going to miss them all.  Very much."

"So you are definitely going home?"

Home.  Giles had to smile at the concept.  Where was home now?  Was it the land where he had grown to manhood, or this small suburb of hell where he had truly grown up?

"They don't need me anymore; not really," he said instead, resolutely resuming both glasses and a brave front.  "They think they do, but I'm afraid I've become...superfluous.  And I must say I don't particularly enjoy the feeling."

"Willow tells me there is a young lady involved as well," Wesley commented carefully.  "Olivia was the name mentioned, I believe."

"Yes, well, there is that too."  A dull red glow suffused Giles' cheeks. "She's a...a most unique woman.  It's not easy finding someone who can deal with demands of our line of work, especially if they weren't brought up in it."

Wesley glanced at the curtains, now fully covering the front window.  "That's very true."

"I consider myself quite fortunate."

The bright flash of Willow's red hair caught Wesley's eyes as he turned back to face Giles.  It was much shorter of course, and not nearly so curly...but close counted as much in memories as horseshoes.

"You are quite fortunate indeed," he agreed softly.

* * * * *

"Angel, we're here," Buffy protested faintly, feeling his hands come to rest on her arms.  

"You said that to me earlier," he reminded her gravely.  "You're here, again if not still, and I'm here too.  That's the truth."

It wasn't the direction she thought his mind was turning, but perhaps that was for the best.  Her mind seemed to be doing enough spinning for the two of them.

"It is the truth," she explained, "but it's not the whole truth.  They won't admit what was real, and how am I supposed to...it's just so frustrating."  She pulled away from him and turned to look back at her house.  "Someone's at the window," she said absently.

"Buffy..." 

"We should go in."

Angel stood behind her, hands resting on her shoulders as he pulled her back against him.  He fought the urge to slip his arms around her waist and hold her fast, knowing this was not the time or place.  He settled for rubbing his hands briskly along the length of her arms, trying to restore the warmth being stolen from her by the January night.

"You wanted to talk about something you'd been thinking," he said.  "All we've done is talk about me."

She shrugged under his hands.  "I think about you, you know," she said lightly.

"But that wasn't what you needed to say."

"They're waiting for us."

"I don't care," he insisted.  "Please just tell me what's wrong.  I think I'm getting a sense of it, but...I need some more clues, Buffy.  Or maybe just a straight answer."

"Later," she said swiftly, turning back to face him.  

"But the party..."

"Will eventually end," she finished for him, leaving no room for doubt.  "It's not that late yet either, so there will still be hours of darkness left.  I mean I know you have to get back to LA..."

"I do," he said regretfully.

"But we can still have some time to talk...time alone...and then you can get back before sunrise.  It's winter, after all; even the sun sleeps in these days."

He wanted to say yes.  There was something inside of her, something dark and hurting, and he needed to help her exorcise it.  This wasn't just some nameless innocent victim in need of rescue; this was Buffy.  Her life was his, and her problems likewise, no matter what universal horrors tried to tear them apart.

There was, however, a slight problem.

"I came with Wesley," he replied.  "I drove."

"One car," she said slowly, continuing the thought.

He nodded his head, wishing there was another answer.  "It's not fair to make him wait while we...and anyway, what would we do with him?"

"I suppose leaving him on the back porch with a bone is out of the question?"

"It's probably for the best.  It's...safer."  He tried to look as though he believed safety was a desirable quality in life.

She sighed.  "Foiled again."

Angel's mouth twisted in the old crooked smile, the one that still had the power to break her heart.  

"Curses," he reminded her bleakly.

* * * * *

"They're horrible.  Horrible and nasty and...evil!"

"What's evil?" Buffy asked as she and Angel walked in the front door.  They paused in the archway between the living room and hallway, waiting expectantly for a report the latest power play by the forces of darkness.

"Children's songs," Willow answered with a grin.  "Anya's scared of them."

"I'm not scared," Anya protested,  "But I think they're horrible.  All cradles falling out of trees and drowning spiders and that poor little pig going to market, where you just know he's going to end up as a breakfast meat and meanwhile his brother is sitting at home eating the family cow and..."

"I don't think that last one is actually a song, An," Xander interrupted.  "And Itsy Bitsy went Betty Ford when the sun came out.  He was fine."

"Sure, until he went up that stupid spout again," she retorted.  "You're missing the point.  The songs, the poems, the stories; they're all just scare tactics."  She glanced quickly at Xander before adding defensively, "Of course, I'm an adult so I'm not scared.  Just...concerned."

"So you're saying 'Wheels on the Bus' is a scare tactic?" Willow asked doubtfully.

Anya nodded vigorously.  "Can you think of a better statement on the futility of life?  I've heard that song; it's all 'going round and round,' like that's a good thing.  But does anyone ever actually make it off that bus?  No, they're all trapped, endlessly circling some nameless town.  It could even be Sunnydale; you don't know."  

She leaned back in her chair, point made.  

"How did this come up, anyway?"  Buffy threw herself into the wingback armchair as Angel leaned against the side.  

"Anya wants to have a baby," Tara explained quietly.  "Willow said she bet Dawn would help with the babysitting and..."

"And it seems Dawn has already been catching Anya up on modern childhood," Xander continued, shivering at his own host of memories.  "You know; summer camp and braces and..."

"And school concerts," Wesley finished.  "They seem to be quite a hotbed of controversy, at least as far as Anya is concerned."

Angel had been listening quietly, still trying to recover his composure from the abbreviated talk with Buffy.  He had wanted so badly to take her in his arms and hold her until the pain in her eyes had vanished from memory, but even if he had the power he didn't have the right.  Now as the discussion centered on children, he was reminded of yet more that he stood apart from.  

"Umm, Anya," he said with difficulty, "if you'd like something a little less violent to sing to your children, I think I still remember some of the ones my mother used to sing to my brothers and sisters.  They were," Angel smiled softly, "kind of pretty.  I could, uh, teach you.  If you'd like."

Anya cocked her head to the side and eyed him doubtfully.  "When did you die again?"

"Anya!" Willow said sharply.  "Asking a person when they died is...well, I guess you don't get a chance to ask many people, but I think it probably still ranks right up there on the rude-much scale with asking when they were born."

The former demon looked surprised.  "I just wanted to know what language the songs would be in," she explained.  "Someone told me he's Irish, and depending on how long ago he died, they might be in Gaelic."

"1753," Angel answered quietly, a small smile still playing at the corners of his mouth.  "So don't worry, they'd be in English."

"Well that's good.  My Gaelic is very rusty, and I'm not sure I'd know what I was singing."

Buffy was stealing glances at Angel's face, watching the way the light played across his cheekbones and glinted on the fine points of his dark hair.  The conversation washed over her largely unnoticed, until a chance comment of Angel's penetrated her consciousness.

"Brothers and sisters?" She looked curiously at him.  "I thought you just had a little sister."

Angel shook his head, the smile falling from his face.  "I was the oldest of seven," he answered steadily.  "Four boys and three girls.  But there were accidents...and disease.  Medical science wasn't exactly a science in those days."  He looked down at his folded hands, remembering the long-lost faces of his family.  "Five of them died before they reached school age.  And then Kathy was born.  We took such good care of her, all of us.  We didn't want to lose her too.  But then..."  He laughed, a sharp unhappy sound.  "Well, you know what happened then."

"Hey," Buffy said swiftly, "if you don't want to talk about this..." 

He squeezed the hand that she had laid on his arm.  "And then there was only me," he continued stoically.  "But I still remember them."  He paused, recalling what had set off this confession.  "The songs I mean.  Along with...everything else."

There was a brief moment of awkward silence, as some eyes sought out Angel's and others shied away in embarrassment.

"Well, hey; good to know I can still kill a party," the vampire said, forcing a chuckle.  "The Angel of Death of the Party."

Willow was the first to recover.  "I think what we need is a song," she said brightly.  

Wesley raised an eyebrow at her.  "Not 'Wheels on the Bus,' I trust."

Willow glanced quickly at Tara, silently urging her girlfriend to help her out.  Tara gulped, but plunged in to the rescue.

"No, I think what Willow means is...that is what she's trying to say is...we, umm, have a gift.  For Xander.  And Anya.  It's a song."

Xander's face immediately brightened.  "You actually got Willow to agree to sing in public, Tara?  You really do work magic, don't you?"

Willow beaned him with a throw pillow as she got to her feet.  "I'm not singing, silly.  Well, just backup maybe.  I wrote the song, the words part of it, and Tara and Giles put it to music."

"I'm touched.  Seriously."  Xander smiled and tugged on Willow's hand as she passed by him, giving it a quick squeeze.

"So you didn't get us the bread machine?" Anya asked.  

"This is a good luck spell, set to music," Willow explained patiently.  "With all the demonic activity in Sunnydale we thought a few extra professional 'best wishes' might come in handy."  She saw the guarded pleasure on Anya's face and added,  "We can still get you the bread machine as a wedding present."

"We don't need a bread machine," Xander said firmly.  "My girl deserves nothing less than store-bought bread, the kind that has enough preservatives to get it through an apocalypse.  We all know how hungry the end of the world can make you."

"Enough talk of worlds ending," Buffy ordered.  "I want music."

The chairs were hastily pulled into a semi-circle, and cushions thrown on the floor for those who preferred to stretch out.  Xander flipped off a few lights to add atmosphere, while Angel and Buffy fetched two kitchen chairs for the musicians.  Tara sat down on one of the chairs and tuned her guitar as Willow tried in vain to persuade Giles to sing with them.

"No, Willow; I simply can't," he gently demurred.  "Not only is the gift supposed to be from just you two, I truly believe it might weaken the magic to lend my voice.  I've cast a few spells in my time," he added modestly, "but nothing on the level at which you two now function."

Willow tried a final pout, but Giles remained firm.

"I'm sorry, Willow."

"Oh, all right," she sighed.  "But remember this when you're covering your ears to block out my lovely voice."

"You'll do splendidly."  He patted her hand reassuringly, and then pushed her towards the empty chair awaiting her next to Tara.

Showtime.

A hush fell over the guests when the first notes spilled out from beneath Tara's fingertips, accompanied by Willow's frail soprano.  

They sang about the future, a future meant to be safe and happy and long, despite the ever-present hellmouth.  They wished for good friendships to remain strong in the face of despair and separation and foolish choices.  They entreated the blessings of the Goddess on the heads of those who dared to attempt a happy ending in lives otherwise populated by demons, hellgods and evil wearing the face of humanity.

The witches' words spun around the room, drawing the occupants ever closer, as a strange force shimmered and grew in the darkened corners of the room. Grey tendrils of mist took shape, slithering just beyond the borders of sight.  Twining. Circling. Enclosing.  

Entrapping.

For long minutes after the song had ended, there was dead silence in the Summers' living room.  The future had been painted for them, in all its uncertain glory, and the power of that vision was frightening.  The air itself seemed to shiver.

Buffy was the first to recover, though not without an effort.  "Whoa, that was...that was quite the spell, Will," she said with a breathless laugh.  "It was beautiful; really it was.  I just wasn't expecting it to be quite so..."

"Powerful," Angel murmured uneasily.  "It was very...powerful."  He shook his head and refocused on the present.  "But Buffy's right; it was beautiful.  You're both, I mean all three," he added, nodding at Giles, "to be congratulated."

"Will, Tara, I don't know how to thank you guys."  Xander awkwardly rose from the sofa cushions on the floor where he'd been lying and leaned over to hug both the witches.  "That was a great gift."

"Xander said what I was going to," Anya jumped in.  "But I was going to say it was much better than a bread machine.  Not that it should stop you from considering that as a wedding present, of course."

"It was just lovely."  Wesley beamed at them from his corner of the sofa.  "You might want to consider this as a career choice.  Not, perhaps, the actual singing," he qualified the statement, "but the business of turning spells into songs.  There are a number of musically talented witches out there who, I'm sure, would appreciate the idea."

"It's hardly a new concept," Giles commented dryly.  He was finding it difficult to shake off the strange lethargy he'd felt steal over him during the musical interlude, but a good debate usually proved a safe cure.  "There are a multitude of what are today described as folk songs, that have their roots in witchcraft of the past.  If you look at any of the Child Ballads..."

"Those aren't spells; they're old wives' tales, and political statements," Wesley protested.   "Surely you're not saying 'Mary Hamilton' is a spell?"

"And 'Loch Lomond'?" Giles challenged.  "The fairy references are quite clear..."

"Hey, guys!  Enough."  Buffy stood up and rested a hand on each hip, fingers nervously tapping against the bone.  "You can talk about that later.  Now we eat the pile of food I see smothering my dining room table."

Everyone looked strangely disconcerted at her suggestion.

"Actually, Buff, I really don't feel like food anymore."  Xander seemed as puzzled by his instinctive answer as anyone; Alexander Lavelle Harris did not turn down food, not while the planets were still rotating around the sun.

"I'm kind of wiped, you know."  Willow passed a fretful hand over her forehead, rousing a concerned glance from Tara.  "But I feel bad; this was supposed to be a party for Buffy."

"It's fine, Will," the Slayer reassured her.

"Maybe we should just go home," Tara suggested, hastily stuffing her guitar in its case so she could put her arm around Willow's waist for support.  "We can celebrate tomorrow, or maybe when Dawnie gets back from band camp."

"Home sounds good," Anya agreed.  "And you didn't want a birthday party anyway, Buffy.  Now you get your wish.  Surprise!"  She looked faintly pleased at having figured out a way to work the word in, but her pleasure was largely overshadowed by weariness.

"We have quite a drive ahead of us," Wesley said uneasily as he glanced at Angel.  "I agree that the party seems to be breaking up, but perhaps we should get some coffee or something before we leave."

Even through his exhaustion, Giles could see the alarm that flitted through Buffy's eyes at the suggestion of Angel's departure.  For a few hours she had enjoyed a brief respite from the worries that besieged her on a daily basis, and it was clear she was not yet ready to go back to everyday life.  Since this was supposed to be a special occasion, for more reasons than one, Giles didn't see why she should have to.

"Wesley old man, why don't you come home with me?" Giles heard himself asking.  "Buffy convinced me to buy a contraption called a futon, which is utterly useless as a place to sit, but I'm told will function adequately as a bed.  You can get a few hours sleep on that, and then tomorrow we can catch each other up on our recent research.  Come sunset, you and Angel can head back to Los Angeles."

"And we can train," Buffy said, turning to Angel with a smile.  "You can stay here...also on the couch...," she added loudly, for the benefit of their audience.   "Then in the morning you can make me one of those big breakfasts that Cordelia bragged you're so famous for, and in the afternoon we can train.  I haven't had a good workout in...years."

He smiled involuntarily at the surprise on her shining face.  "Me either," he agreed.  "It's tough to find someone as strong as I am who's not secretly trying to kill me.  Sometimes they don't even keep it a secret.  Kind of ruins the workout."

"So you'll stay?" she demanded.

It was an easy answer to give, and that was what made it so hard.  He knew they were both in for a tough night, and an even longer recovery time because of it.  Still, he argued with himself, there was only one reasonable answer.

"I'll stay."

* * * * *

To Be Continued


	3. Chapter 3

Author's Note:  From here on out, lyrics are contained within // marks.

Second Verse, Same as the First Part 3 By Gem, DeeJay & PJ 

Buffy bustled around the house, up and down the stairs with blankets and pillows she abandoned on a living room chair, and then darting from dining room to kitchen with platters of untasted food.  Angel did as he had been told and observed from the sofa for as long as he could stand it, but eventually even his iron control broke.

"Buffy, I can't just sit here," he announced, rising to his feet with great purpose that faltered in the face of the Slayer's stare.

"Angel, you're a guest, and I'm like Suzie Homemaker these days.  Sit. Relax," she ordered, never missing a step.  "I will take care of this."

"As I recall, I usually didn't get away with that line," he muttered, hovering indecisively in the middle of the living room.

"Excuse me?"

"At least let me clear the table," he begged, following her into the dining room.  "I'm used to clearing up after a crowd, and you have no idea how much of a mess Gunn and Wesley can make if they're plotting strategy with chopsticks in their hands.  This," he said, gesturing to the half-cleared table, "is a piece of cake in comparison."

She laid the plate of chicken wings on the hutch and crossed her arms over her chest.  "And just what am I supposed to do in the meantime?"

"Sit," he suggested hopefully.  "Relax.  You look tired."  

His voice softened over the last words, unconsciously resuming the tender, husky tones her weak knees remembered all too well.

"Gee thanks."  She looked away, trying to draw a deep, yet unobtrusive, breath to steady her traitorous pulse.

"You worked hard on the engagement party, and it showed.  But now it's time to take it easy and let someone take care of you for a little while."

That caught her attention, drawing her unwilling gaze back to lock on his dark eyes.

"You were the only one who ever could."  Her brow wrinkled as though in pain.  "Weren't you?"

Angel was confused by the desperation in her tone.

"I don't...I'm not sure I was the only one," he answered with difficulty.  The shadow of Riley still stood between them, taunting Angel with questions the vampire would never dare ask.  "I know I did the best I could when...when we were together."

She realized she had unwittingly hurt him.  Again.  She took a few quick steps towards him, stopping just shy of touching him. 

"Since you're the expert when it comes to kitchen duty, and we both know I'm...well, not...why don't you take care of the food and I'll make up the couch?" she suggested.  "That way we can both feel useful."

He smiled with relief.  "Sounds good to me."

She fluffed cushions and smoothed blankets as he transferred the leftovers to the refrigerator.  By the time she finally felt the couch was worthy of him, Angel had started the dishwasher and returned to the living room.

"That looks great, Buffy."  He stood uncertainly in the archway, nodding at the profusion of bedding that smothered the sofa.  "Very, umm, cozy."

Part of him regretted his word choice a moment later when a flush stole across her cheeks.  The other part of him was too entranced by the same sight to hear her answer.

"I just wanted it to...well, I felt bad making you sleep down here."  The rosy tint of her face deepened.  "I mean instead of giving you Dawn's room or, umm, my mom's.  My mom's old room, I mean. But, you know, Dawn is a teenager, so the room is kind of a mess."

Angel came back to earth with a grin as Buffy casually dismissed her teen years, so far in the distant past from the age of almost 21.

"And my mom's room is still...I haven't had the time to really, umm, settle things.  If you know what I mean."  Her blush faded into winter-pale skin, and the first hint of tears filled the corners of her eyes.  "Things got kind of busy, what with the funerals and all. You know, first hers, then mine," she tried to joke.  "Busy, busy."

Angel slowly approached her, wanting to offer comfort but uncertain of his reception.  She seemed almost brittle, as though one wrong word would shatter her.

"No one expects you to do it all, Buffy," he said softly.  "Certainly not all alone."

She brushed the back of her hand across her lids, trying to wipe away the tears before they reached her cheeks.

"Yeah, they do."  There was tired resignation in her damp hazel eyes.  "You know they do."

"I don't."

She couldn't help but smile.  

"I know.  And maybe the others don't even realize what they're asking."  She ran a hand through her hair, pushing a stray lock off of her face as her smile wavered and then melted away.  "But I still feel it."

"Maybe it's time you told them," he suggested gently.  

"What am I supposed to say?  That calling me back from the grave was a little on the needy side?  Hello, you 'saved' my life, but who were you really trying to save?"  The effect of her retort was somewhat spoiled by the enormous yawn that followed it.  

He needed to divert her attention, to drive away all the emotional demons that were plaguing her and give her at least one night of peace.

"You're exhausted.  We can talk about this in the morning.  Or all day long if you want."  He could feel a mixture of joy and panic flooding his veins.  "I'm not going anywhere."

"And tomorrow you'll be the exhausted one after sleeping on this old thing."  She nudged the sofa with her foot.

Angel shrugged.  "Hey, I've even managed to sleep in a coffin and you, of all people, know how uncomfortable they can be."

Buffy stared at him in disbelief, stunned as much by his light tone as the sudden, hesitant smile on his face.  Abruptly, the Slayer started to giggle.

"I can't believe you said that!"  She threw herself back onto the sofa, almost sliding off thanks to the profusion of blankets.  As she planted her feet firmly on the floor and pushed herself back up on the cushions, she continued, "Nobody even uses the dreaded "c" word, let alone jokes about it."

He sat down beside her, wedging himself into the corner of the sofa so that he could face her.  

"You taught me how.  Even in the worst situations, you always manage to show the absurdity of it all."  He reached out to her, resting one tentative hand on her shoulder.  "That kind of bravery inspires people, you know."

Buffy shook her head, stubbornly refusing his praise.  "When I joke about stuff, it's to make it less real.  So I can stand it.  But you...it's like you need to beat yourself over the head with how real the bad or scary stuff is."

"If it's real it's not going to just disappear."

She smiled crookedly at him.  "You'd think that, wouldn't you?"

Angel frowned at the recurring theme he was sensing.  "Buffy, I know things have been, well, pretty weird for you the last six months, and maybe you're not sure where you fit in anymore.  That's..." he paused, and then continued, "That's something I can relate to.  If you need someone to talk to, you know that I..."

"Yeah, I know," she said quickly.  "I think tonight I'm just tired and a little early with the birthday blues.  Really early, depending on how you count it." 

She seemed to be talking more to herself than Angel, but seeing his quizzical look Buffy felt compelled to explain. 

"What I'm saying is: which one do I celebrate now?  The day I was born or the day I was reborn?"

He felt a surge of anger at the Powers for making her face such a question, but he controlled his temper and tried to keep the mood light.  She didn't need his pain to fuel her own right now.

"You're asking the wrong guy.  I don't celebrate either, remember?"

"Yeah, but you count from the year you were turned," she pointed out.  "So does that mean I'm like three months old now?  Cause I hear baby food is really high in calories."

"I lied about my age; so sue me.  We old guys do that when we date sweet young things."  Angel tried a leer on for size, not sure if he'd gotten it right.  It had been a long time, at least for the souled part of him.

She reached across him to grab a pillow to hit him with, telling him he must have done at least a halfway decent rendition.  He caught the cushion and held fast, laughing as she initiated a tug-of-war over the object.  She was, of course, the victor, finally pulling the pillow to her chest as she leaned her cheek against the back of the sofa.

"That felt good," she said with a breathless grin.  "But I'm can't believe how tired out it got me."  Her eyelids fluttered as she burrowed her head into the yielding cushions.  "Must be getting old."

"Buffy..."

"Mmm...sleep," she drowsily commanded him.

Angel made a decision.  The safe thing to do was to wake Buffy up and send her to her own bed...that is to say out of sight, so that he could spend an uneasy night tossing and turning on the sofa alone.  But while Buffy's presence brought many of his animal instincts to the fore, self-preservation was not one of them.

With one hand he reached back to the lamp on the end table beside him and switched it off.  The other hand slipped between Buffy's shoulders and the sofa cushion, gently pulling her forward until she rested against his chest.  She murmured indistinctly in her sleep and brushed her cheek against his shirt as she settled in for the night.  

Angel dropped a kiss on the top of her head and rested his cheek against the warm pillow of her hair, giving in to the weariness he, too, felt.  With a sigh he closed his eyes and drifted off into his first real rest since the night he had breathed his last breath in Buffy's arms, on a night that existed only in his memories.

* * * * *

Buffy could hear noise in the distance, too far away to recognize.  It rhythmically rose and fell, forming an endless circle of sound.  She tried to identify it, but the harder she tried, the more indistinct the sound became, until it was just an echo in the back of her skull.  Just an illusion.

Reality was the solid breadth of the chest beneath her cheek.

She opened her eyes, and for a moment forgot to breathe.  When she recovered the memory, she tried not to anyway, for fear of disturbing this one moment of almost perfect happiness.

She was stretched out on top of the sofa, or rather half on top of Angel on top of the sofa.  He still slept, his pale face untroubled and disturbingly beautiful in the dimly lit living room.  Buffy understood why she would have taken the opportunity to stay down here with him, instead of her lonely bed; she just didn't remember actually deciding. 

Talking to Angel, that she remembered; and she possessed the barest memory of a pillow fight, amazingly enough also with Angel.  Then there was only darkness.  A safe, peaceful darkness, spoiled only by that annoying song..._yes that was it! a song!_...that wove in and out of her dreams.  She could still hear the music in the back of her head, sending out random bursts of words like a cell phone out of range.

_// There was something…air that night..._

_stars were bright,_

_Fernando //_  

Angel stirred slightly beneath her, his eyes gradually opening and focusing on her.  As always, the intensity of emotion behind his silent gaze pushed everything else to the background.

"Hey," she said softly, trying not to drown in the dark pools confronting her.  "Good morning."

"Morning," he mumbled in reply.  The hand that wasn't wrapped around Buffy's waist came up to rub the sleep from his eyes.  "What time is..." Suddenly he realized where they were...how they were. "What did I...we...what happened?"

She knew she should get up, and let him get up, but Buffy was tired of going the 'should' route where Angel was concerned.  She propped up her elbow against his chest and pillowed her cheek on her palm, smiling down at his confusion.

"I thought you could tell me.  I remember fighting over a pillow and then...boom.  Here we are."

Angel's brow furrowed with concentration.  "You were sleepy; I remember that.  You fell asleep actually, right as I was talking to you."

"Oops.  Sorry."  She tried to look repentant.

"I was going to carry you upstairs but I thought...well, it didn't seem like a good idea."  He knew he didn't need to elaborate; Buffy's flush said she read him loud and clear.  "So we both stayed here, on the couch.  But we were sitting up when I fell asleep," he added quickly.  "I'm sure we were."

"I guess we just...got comfy."  She shrugged, satisfied with both explanation and outcome.  "Close enough to 'mystery solved' for me."

Angel smiled a little wistfully, memory upon memory crowding into his brain.  "It's not like it's the first time," he reminded her.  "Though we used to have a tough patrol as an excuse.  Guess we're both getting old."

"Yeah, like it was the patrolling that wore you out," she teased.  "I remember...I mean I..."  Abruptly she sat up and slid down to the end of the sofa, getting quickly to her feet.  "I need food.  How about you?  I can call Willie and see if he'll deliver."

Angel sat up as well, swinging his long legs down to the floor.  "Buffy, what's wrong?"

"Nothing," she said quickly.  Too quickly; she could tell that from the deepening frown on his forehead.  "I'm hungry, that's all.  Well, that and I have the beginnings of beautiful headache."  She rubbed her own forehead fretfully, trying to force the pain away with Slayer strength.

Angel started to respond, and then realized his head was throbbing as well.  Throbbing to a beat, actually.  

"That's weird," he murmured, more to himself than Buffy.  "I've got one too.  Guess there must have been more of a kick to that beer of Giles' than I thought."

"That explains you, but I behaved myself last night," she said tartly.

"You're underage for two more weeks," he shot back, and winced as the drums began to grow louder.

_// And so I just decided to myself, I'd hide it to myself_

_and never talk about it //_

Buffy forgot her own discomfort in the face of Angel's obvious pain.

"Say, speaking of 21s, we're in this thing called the 21st century, and part of the deal with being here is this stuff codenamed 'aspirin'.  Word is, it really does the trick on the skull jamborees."

Angel shook his head, gritting his teeth when he realized he was doing it to the beat.  "Doesn't work too well on vamps, remember?"  Suddenly he recalled what had started them on this particular discussion.  "Or is 'remember' a dirty word now?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," she protested.  "And I do remember about the headache thing; I just forgot, that's all."

Angel choked out a little laugh as he got to his feet.  "What do you say we call it even?" he suggested.  "I'll make you breakfast, which will probably cure your headache.  And if I can make you smile again, the way you were doing when I woke up, I'm sure my headache will disappear too."

"Deal."  She tried not to let her mind wander back to those first fleeting moments of peace she had know when he awoke; the here and now was closest thing to safety she knew anymore.  "You make breakfast while I take a shower and a few hundred aspirin.  Then when you feel you have administered sufficient doses of comfort food to a mind diseased, we can work on the tom-toms in your brain."

* * * * *

Xander was no stranger to quick awakenings; many was the morning he had been thrown from his dreams by the specter of a demon long since dust...or possibly a murderous and fiendishly clever circus clown.  He was not used to being thrown physically from the bed, however, no matter how annoyed he'd gotten Anya the previous night.  Yet the morning after their engagement party, Xander woke up just an instant before he hit the floor.

Unfortunately it was also about two instants too late to prevent him from landing full force on his chin and kneecaps.

"Anya!  What's with the human discus throw?"  He rolled over and sat up on the floor, rubbing his chin as much to reassure himself of its shape as to soothe it.  "Did I say something incriminating in my sleep, or..."

"No, no!" she cried out in her sleep.  "Bad...bad, evil...no!  Don't hit the little...oh why don't you run, you stupid mouse!"

Xander didn't even bother getting to his feet; he slid over to the bed on his reddened knees and scrambled back up, pulling the thrashing Anya into his arms.

"Hey, An, hush.  It's okay; it's okay," he crooned, rocking her back and forth.  

Gradually she awoke and stared up at him, seeming strangely disoriented by his presence.

"Xander, where are they?"  She cast frightened glances about the bedroom.  "Is he gone?  Or did they all die?"

"Did who die?" he asked patiently.  "You were having a dream, Anya; a pretty nasty one, from the look of it.  Do you remember what it was about?"

She ran her hand repeatedly over her forehead as she thought.

"Noooo," she said slowly, "not exactly.  I remember this evil laughter, and some other sound in the background; sort of like chanting.  I can still hear it."  She frowned and pushed away from Xander.  "It's giving me a headache."

Xander stared at her in amazement.  "Honey, I wasn't looking for a morning tumble.  I was trying to wake you up from a bad dream."

Anya frowned at him.  "Then if I have a headache I'm no longer sexually desirable?" she demanded.

"I can't win," he murmured, shaking his head.  "I just can't win."

"I found you desirable even when you were pale and sweaty and diseased," she reminded him.  "And I took care of you so that you wouldn't remain that way."

"And now it's my turn," he said, following her train of thought to the next stop.

"Well I have a headache."  Her lower lip came out with the slightest of trembles; a lesson she'd learned well at the feet of Dawn, the Master.  "Otherwise you know I would be happy to do my almost-wifely duty."

Xander suddenly noticed her words were coming out in a singsong fashion, or maybe it just seemed that way because of the musical accompaniment his brain was producing.

_// There is just one moon and one golden sun //_

"You know, An, I'm developing a good case of the galloping mariachi bands in my head too.  It's Saturday; what do you say we hide in bed until noon just sleeping for a change?"

She nodded quickly; wincing when she realized the voices in her head started chanting to the rhythm.  Xander wrapped his arms around her and together they lay back on the bed.  

"It's too quiet," she whispered a few minutes later.  

Xander groaned.  "Speak for yourself.  My head's loud enough to require a variance."

"That's what I mean."  She twisted her head to look up at him.  "When there's no other noise, all I can hear is the sound in my head."

Instead of replying, Xander stretched out a hand and turned on the clock radio on the nightstand.  Music began to fill the room.

Anya shook her head.  "It's no good.  I can still hear it."

He turned the radio up more, and then louder still a few minutes later when Anya frowned and gestured to him.  He didn't protest, even as the volume was maxed out and the neighbors began to pound on the walls.

Because no matter how loudly Xander turned up the radio, it could not drown out the chorus of high-pitched voices resounding in his brain.

_// There's so much that we share that it's time we're aware... //_

* * * * *

Giles awoke with a strange thrumming in his skull, and a raging desire for the taste of nicotine.  He stumbled down his stairs, clutching the wrought-iron railing for support as he racked his brain for likely hiding places for the cigarettes he craved.  He knew he had never brought any into the apartment; his smoking days were twenty years in the past.  But he could be nearly certain that Spike had left a pack somewhere around during one of his many mooching visits.  If Giles knew one thing about the blond vampire, it was that he had no clue how to pick up after himself.

_// They say there's gold but I'm looking for thrills //_

Giles pressed a fist to his skull as he cleared the last step.  No more, no more, he swore to himself.  No more mixing beer with witch's fruit punch; even Keith Richards

would have succumbed to that combination.

He stumbled on the edge of the throw rug as he replayed his last internal comment.  Why on earth was he comparing himself to...

Wesley's groan disrupted his query.  The younger Watcher was sitting up on the sofa, clutching a blanket with one hand and his head with the other.

"Damn Angel," Wesley was muttering as Giles approached him.  "Damn him and his infernal elevator music."

"Wesley?"  Giles stood next to the sofa, his own pain momentarily diverted from the center of his thoughts.  "Are you all right?"

Wesley looked up at him, eyes bleary from sleep and lips tight with pain.

_// His name was Rico,_

_he wore a diamond //_

"Just ducky," he grumbled.

* * * * *

_// Well where oh where can my baby be?_

_The Lord took her away from me //_

Tara woke up screaming, reaching for Willow.

"Oh God, oh God," she chanted as she frantically embraced her lover.  "You're all right; you're really okay.  I had such bad dreams."

Willow sat up with difficulty, still holding on to the clinging Tara as she maneuvered them both back against the headboard.  

"It's okay, sweetie," she said.  "I'm here.  I'm fine.  I didn't even have a bad dream."  She smiled reminiscently as she smoothed her hand over Tara's long hair.  "In fact it was kind of nice...I think.  I don't actually remember a lot of it."  

"Mine was horrible," Tara gasped, fighting the images her waking mind was trying to retrieve from her subconscious.  "I'm not really sure what it was about, but..." she shivered, "I know it was awful."

"I'm sorry.  Would a nice cup of cocoa make you feel better?  We have lots of little marshmallows; I picked them up at the store yesterday."

_// Fah who for-aze, _

_Dah who dor-aze //_

Willow shook her head at the image that came to mind at the mention of cocoa.  Without thinking, her hand drifted up to rub her temple.  Suddenly her happy mood was dissolving in the face of a major hangover.

Which would make sense if she'd had anything but Tara's fruit punch last night.

"Maybe cocoa would help."  Tara tried to look positive, to bolster Willow's spirits.  She could sense all was not well with her girlfriend either, no matter what Willow said.  "But first, since you're up, could you...could you get me some feverfew?  My head...it's kind of achy this morning."

_// The cryin' tires, the bustin' glass,_

_the painful scream that I heard last //_

"And earplugs...earplugs would be good thing too," she added with a grimace.

* * * * *

"That was great, Angel.  Two 'yums' beyond scrumptious.  I didn't even mind doing the clean-up for that kind of payoff."

Buffy tried to smile brightly as she entered the living room, but she could see Angel wasn't fooled.  The vampire's eyes narrowed as he sat up on the sofa, where he had been sprawling in a vain post-shower nap attempt.

"You hardly ate a bite," he pointed out.  "You just pushed the food around on your plate and hummed."

A quick frown dowsed all memory of her feeble smile.  "I was humming?  I didn't...I'm sorry, I didn't realize."

Angel rubbed his forehead, trying to stimulate his non-existent blood flow.  "It's okay," he mumbled.  "Nothing wrong with a little music in the morning."  

_// Before I go insane I hold my pillow to my head_

_and spring up in my bed screaming out the words I dread //_

"Or maybe not," he groaned, hunching over to press both fists into his temples.

Buffy hurried over to the sofa and sat down beside him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders as she huddled protectively over him.

"Angel, I'm sorry.  At least I could take some Tylenol.  It didn't help," she admitted lightly, "but at least I could try."

"I'll be fine," Angel muttered, trying to convince himself as much as Buffy.  

She tugged at his shoulders, gently pulling him upright as she moved back to the end of the sofa.  

"Come on, lean back," she urged.  "I may be a little shaky on some details, but I seem to remember that for you massages work in ways wonder drugs can only wonder about."

Angel slowly leaned back and sideways, until he was stretched out on the sofa with his head pillowed on Buffy's crossed legs.  She lifted his head almost as soon as he had settled it, to slide a pillow underneath, and then she pressed her fingertips to his temples and began smoothing them in small circles across his cool flesh.

She remembered doing this before, after Spike had drained Angel's blood to save Dru.  For days afterward Angel had been weak and listless, subject to blinding headaches.  No matter what combination of painkillers she had tried dosing him with, nothing worked, until she made him close his eyes and lean back against her, as she massaged his temples.  To this day she wasn't sure if it was actually the massage that worked, or just the closeness that they shared.

If she closed her own eyes, she could almost see herself back there, in Angel's old apartment; just the two of them, in that cozy little room.  When she shut the door behind her it was as though no one else in the world existed...until the day Dawn decided to follow her and...her thoughts skidded to a halt as Angel began to speak.

"What did you mean about being shaky on details?" he was asking as she pulled herself out of her suddenly painful reverie.

"It's nothing," she answered quickly.  "Hey, good thing I still had some of your old clothes in the back of my closet, huh?"  She reached down and smoothed a hand along the collar of his shirt, slipping one finger inside to gently stroke the side of his throat.  "Kind of embarrassing actually, but at least my humiliation served a higher purpose this time."

"Buffy..."

She quickly pulled her hand back, not sure if he was protesting her gesture for being evasive, or provocative, or maybe both.

"A hot shower, clean clothes, and now a massage," she rambled, trying to restore a relaxed mood.  "Not bad hospitality for an unexpected guest, if I do say so myself.  We'll even get you some blood as soon as Willie's opens."  She paused for a breath, but rushed on before he could get a word in.  "How is your head now?"  

"Better," he lied.  "What did you mean?"

"Nothing," she insisted.  "I was making a little joke.  You said you admired my sense of humor, remember?"

Angel twisted his head on the pillow, craning his neck to look her in the eye.

"You're the one who has trouble with the word, Buffy; not me." 

He made it sound like she wanted to forget, she thought bitterly.  Like it had all been her idea.

// I remember long ago another starry night like this In the firelight Fernando // 

"Hey, I just spent three months in the ground, as in a grave.  Tell me you wanted to play the "Auld Lang Syne" game when you got back from the other side."

Angel sat up abruptly, and moved to the other end of the sofa, rubbing his temples with his own hands in place of hers.

_// This morning I woke up with this feeling_

_I didn't know how to deal with //_

"I killed all the other contestants; what's your excuse?" he growled.

"Fernando, I wish you would just..."

"What did you call me?" Angel whipped his head around to confront her.

She was confused by the question, and by the pain so nakedly apparent in his eyes.  "Angel; I called you Angel.  That is still your name, right?"  His wounded look wasn't going anywhere, making her words tumble out even faster.  "Or one of them anyway.  I never felt comfortable calling you Liam even if..."

"You called me Fernando," he said quietly, trying to smother the jealousy beginning to stir in his veins.  He had no right to be jealous; he knew that.  But still..."Who is Fernando?"

"I don't know any Fernando."  

Sometimes it really amazed her the number of men Angel assumed to be in her life, and now he was jealous of one who didn't even exist.  

// I could hear the distant drums and sounds of bugle calls // 

"Except," she continued slowly, "in this crazy song that I can't seem to get out of my head.  It was there when I woke up, and I can't shake it."  She pulled her knees up in front of her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs, suddenly needing something solid to cling to.

Angel stared at her as the drum beat intensified inside his skull.  "A song?  You woke up with a song in your head that won't go away?"

Buffy stood up abruptly and began to pace.

"I said that, didn't I?" she asked crossly.  "It's just some dumb oldies thing; I must have heard it at the party last night and not realized it."

"Buffy I woke up with a song in my head too, and it's not going away either," Angel said.  "But I'm sure I didn't hear it last night.  I haven't heard it in years."

She crossed over to the couch and sat down next to Angel.  

"Is yours...getting louder?" she asked hesitantly, not daring to look at him.

"Uh huh."

"And...not quite all there?  I mean bits of it just keep going round and round, like really gullible rats in a cheese-less maze?"

_// I think I love you, I think I love you, I think I love you //_

He nodded, grinding his teeth from the pain.  "Good way to describe it."

"Does it have the name 'Fernando' in it?" she asked hopefully.

"Nope."

"So much for synchronicity.  What should we..."

The ringing doorbell provided an answer before she had a chance to finish the question.

* * * * *

"Xander!" Buffy exclaimed when she opened the door.  "What are you doing here so early?  And what's wrong with..."

"Make it stop," Anya whimpered.  She leaned heavily into Xander's side, depending on his arm to keep her on her feet.   "It's too horrible.  I can't take it anymore."

Buffy quickly stepped back from the doorway and gestured for Xander and Anya to come in.  After a moment's hesitation, Xander swept his fiancée up and carried her inside the house.

Angel was waiting in the living room, just beyond the range of the sunlight spilling across the open threshold.  Buffy quickly closed the door and joined them as Xander was settling Anya in the wingback chair.

"Is she...too?"  Angel looked to Buffy for the answer, but she only shrugged.

"I'm guessing yes, but no confirmation on that score yet."

Xander rubbed his forehead as he stared down at Anya, now huddled up in a tight ball.  The fetal position, he corrected himself silently, and winced anew as another chorus hit his brain cells.

"Buff, do you have any aspirin?" he asked mechanically.  "Or can I maybe borrow your pet sledgehammer?  I...we...have these rotten headaches and..."

"And music?" Angel asked softly, mindful of Anya's apparently fragile state.  "One song playing over and over until you think it's going to blow out your speakers?"

Xander looked at him in astonishment.  "How did you know?  Not just about the song, but about blowing out speakers?"

Buffy smiled faintly as she retrieved a pillow from the sofa to put behind Anya's back.  "We've got it too," she explained.  "Not the same songs, but the same problem.  Ever since we woke up."

Xander's attention was swiftly diverted from matters musical. 

"And this waking up part; that would be at the same time?" he asked archly.  "Just how do _we_ know that?"

"Cool it, Xander," Buffy replied with a warning glance.  "_We_ obviously have bigger problems to deal with than what did not, I repeat, did not, happen here last night."

Xander punched Angel's shoulder.  "As a guy, I say 'tough luck, fella.'  As a guy who doesn't want to die screaming while the world comes to a fiery end...I say 'way to be, man'."

Buffy scowled at him.  "And as a guy who doesn't want to beaten to a pulp with his own tongue by an angry Slayer, can you tell me what song your jukebox is skipping on?"

"Song?" Xander asked nervously.  "You mean what it's called.  As in the, uh, name of it?"

_// It's a world of hope and a world of fear //_

"It's, well, it's kind of embarrassing."  Xander scratched his head and looked away, focusing on a paint bubble on the wall just to the right of Buffy's shoulder.  "I mean there are some songs that a man just should not have running through his head and this is one of them."  He appealed to Angel for help.  "You're a guy; you know what I mean."

_// I think I love you – isn't that what life is made of //_

"Absolutely," Angel said fervently.__

"Oh great," Buffy grumbled.  "And the world succumbs to demons because the male ego has all the resiliency of pudding."

Xander sensed a way off the subject of his musical tastes and ran with it.

"Pudding can be very tough," he said quickly.  "You don't know tough until you've tried my mom's tapioca."

"It wasn't demons," Anya groaned.  "It wasn't even pudding.  It was that wretched fruit punch of Tara's.  Why do you people let witches supply the refreshments?  Does the phrase 'poisoned apples' ring any sort of a bell?"  

_// Down came the Good Fairy and she said... //_

Anya moaned again and slammed her head into the back cushion of the chair.  "Besides the ones in my head, that is."

"It wasn't the fruit punch," Angel said.  "I didn't have any and I've got a song in my head too.  It must have been something else."

"We all had different drinks, so that's a wash."  Buffy began to pace, trying to force her muddled mind to work around the continuing din in her skull.  "Maybe something in the food?"

"What, someone cast a spell on the cheese puffs?"  Xander scoffed.

"Shrimp," Anya whimpered from the depths of the chair cushion.

"No, I didn't have any of the shrimp," Xander countered quickly.  "You said they were going bad so I steered clear."

Buffy glanced quickly from Xander to Anya.  "No one told me the shrimp were bad.  Why didn't you guys just put them away or something?  There could be a lot of guests with food poisoning out there."  She clutched her stomach.  "Including me."

"There could be a lot of guests out there going Phantom from their own private operas, Buff; let's focus."  

"So we need to start getting in touch with people," Angel said slowly.  "Find out who has it and who doesn't."  He pressed a fist to his skull.  "Damn!  This isn't brain surgery; we've done the drill a hundred times before.  But this songs makes it so hard to concentrate for more than a few minutes at a time."

Buffy moved over to his side and wound her arms around his arm.  "Angel, relax.  Like you told me, nobody expects you to do it all, all by yourself.  We'll figure it out together."

"Together," he echoed, smiling down at her as he rested one hand over hers on his sleeve.  "Does that make this a duet?"

"More like dueling barbershop quartets," Xander said.  "Now can we have a little more action and a little less bonding, please?  Some of us prefer our music with commercials...and sports breaks."

"Angel, you have your cell with you, right?"  When Angel nodded, Buffy continued, "Could you call Giles and Willow and ask them to come over for a post-party research party?  Xander, you take the downstairs phone and start calling your relatives.  I'm going to take my cell and call some of Dawn's friends.  They weren't at the party."

"Good point."  Angel nodded, the wrinkle on his brow clearing slightly now that there was a plan.  "We need to know if it's town-wide or just party-wide."

"Just," Anya huffed.

"Hang tight, An."  Xander dropped a kiss on her head.  "The Buffster's home now; she'll take care of it, just like she always does."

Angel growled faintly, unnerving Xander and amusing Buffy.

"I thought we said we'd handle this together," Angel ground out.  "As in all of us."

Buffy withdrew her arms from Angel's and patted him on the shoulder.  "My hero."  She reached up with her other hand and laid it on his chin, gently turning his head to face the coat rack.  "Now be a good little superhero, grab your phone from your coat pocket and start dialing."

Suddenly the phone in the hall rang, forcing one and all to cover their ears.

"No more noise!" Anya shouted, her voice breaking on the last word.  "It just makes it louder," she continued in a soft whimper.

Buffy ran to grab the instrument of torture before it could go off again.

"Hello? Giles, is that you?  You sound so...Giles stop huffing and tell me what...cigarettes and what?  Floyd who?...Oh, them...yeah, old guys with guitars; I remember now.  We've got them too."  She cast a withering glance over her shoulder at Angel and Xander.  "At least some of us admit we do."  She returned her attention to Giles when her dig failed to produce a confession.  "That's what I said...Angel and Xander and Anya and I...And Wes?  And Tara and Willow too?...He thinks what?...Well, we kind of thought...yeah, come on over.  We need to research, and I think it's going to take all of our heads together to make any progress against Woodstock 2002." 

Angel started pacing from the living room to the hallway as Buffy hung up the phone.  

"So they've got it too?  All of them?"

"Yup."  Buffy nodded her head, and then clutched it before it completely detached from her neck; it seemed a very real possibility at the moment.  "And Giles says that Wesley says it's your fault."

"What? Why me?"  Angel searched his overburdened conscience for a shred of guilt to claim as his own, but for once he came up empty.  "How is this my fault?"

Buffy smiled, despite the throbbing beat pulsating through every vein in her skull.  

"Good answer.  And I have no idea."

"I guess none of us are thinking very clearly at the moment."  Angel frowned.  "Which doesn't bode well for a research party, does it?"

_// I think I love you so what am I so afraid of? //_

* * * * *

To Be Continued 


	4. Chapter 4

Second Verse, Same as the First Part 4 

**By Gem, DeeJay & PJ**

"This is useless; utterly useless."  Giles tossed yet another book on the already heaping dining room table.  "We have seen no references of demons who use music to torture their victims...and even if we were to stumble across such a tidbit, none of us can sustain a thought long enough to..."

_// Well you go your way,_

_I'll go mine._

_I don't care if we get there on time //_

"To ascertain the remedy," he finished through grinding teeth.  "This abominable music grows stronger by the minute."

"Every time I find something good, someone starts humming and I lose my place," Willow grumbled.  

"The humming helps me," Tara offered shyly.  "At least for a little..."  

_// I couldn't stop, so I swerved to the right_

_I'll never forget the sound that night //_

"...while," she continued, "it breaks up the song in my own head."   Her fingers absently wound through her hair, twisting a lock so tightly that the skin started to pull away from her skull at the roots.

"Me too."  Xander tossed his own book on the pile next to Giles'.  "And at the moment that would help me do research even more than a jelly donut.  If we had jelly donuts, that is."  He eyed Buffy speculatively.

"Sorry, Xander.  We have party leftovers, but no donuts."  

"We also have the breakfast Buffy didn't eat," Angel said, carefully not looking at his beloved.  "We have plenty of that."

"I'd better not be hearing the beginning of a lecture on good eating habits from the man who won't let me send out for blood."  She wrinkled her nose.  "That sentence sounded a lot better in my head."

_// I could hear the distant drums_

_And sounds of bugle calls were coming from afar //_

"Actually it was the only thing that sounded good in my head."

Angel reached out across the table and covered her hand with his.    "We're going to figure this out, I promise."

"Not at the rate we're going."  She sighed as Angel pulled his hand away; experience told her he wouldn't even look at her for some little time to come, until he had forced back the twin demons of desire and guilt.  

"So far, all we know is that we're the only one affected.  I'm afraid that means you're outvoted by the hummers, Will.  Except..." Buffy glanced around the room.  "I think it would work better if there were actual words instead of just the melody.  So who wants to volunteer to sing?"

There was a sudden, and overwhelming, silence.

"Oh come on, guys," she protested.  "I'd offer, but I can't catch all the words; they just come in spurts."

"Well I'm not sure if mine are all right either.  And, umm, I have a sore throat."  Xander ostentatiously rubbed his Adam's apple.

"Since when?"  Buffy raised an eyebrow at him.  "You just don't want us to know what your song is."

He nodded enthusiastically.  "That too."

"Any other brave volunteers?  Willow?"

Her best friend offered a watery smile instead.  "I don't think mine has many real words; mostly they're just gibberish."

_// Christmas day is in our grasp_

_So long as we have hands to clasp //_

"And the ones I do recognize don't make much sense; at least not for me."

Buffy sighed again.

"Anya is in no shape to sing; that's pretty clear." The Slayer gestured to the former demon in question, huddled miserably on a chair in the corner of the room.  "And I'm assuming Angel won't grace us with whatever little ditty is running through his mind."  She turned to Wesley.  "How about you, Wes?"

"Me?"

_// Her name was Lola_

_She was a showgirl._

With yellow feathers in her hair 

_And a dress cut down to there //_

"I think not," he answered, shuddering slightly at the thought.  "I refuse to hold myself up to ridicule for a song that is in no way my responsibility."  He looked pointedly at Angel.  "Perhaps I should write it out the parts I can remember so that the person who made me listen to it in the first place may sing it.  No doubt he already knows all the words."

Angel stood up abruptly.  "Wesley, can I talk to you?" he asked tightly.  "Privately."

Wesley almost leapt to his feet; the cacophony in his head was driving him wild and only the prospect of battle seemed a likely vanquisher.  

"Guys!" Buffy called after them as they walked quickly towards the kitchen.  "We don't have time for...oh this is ridiculous!" she snapped.  "Whoever made up the phrase 'with a song in my heart' should have his tongue cut out with his own sheet music."

* * * * *

As soon as they reached the privacy of the kitchen, Angel grabbed Wesley's arm, spinning the Watcher around to face him.

"Would you mind telling me where all this hostility is coming from?  I did not create this situation."

Wesley pulled his arm free of Angel's grasp.  "I realize that, but you are responsible for the particular tune that has been running through my head all morning.  You and your excuse for a karaoke act."

Angel looked confused.  "What act?  I don't..." Suddenly he drew a deep breath as an explanation occurred to him.  He shot a quick glance at the closed kitchen door before leaning towards Wesley.  In a low voice, he asked, "It's a Manilow?"

"Yes, blast you."  Wesley swung away from Angel and began circling the room.  "I couldn't have a rugged fight song in my head, or even something patriotic.  No, thanks to you I have this...lounge music...running non-stop."

_// But Rico went a bit too far_

_Tony sailed across the bar // _

"It's not lounge music," Angel protested.  Another covert glance at the door.  "Which...which one is it, anyhow?"

Wesley stared at him, appalled.  "Does it matter?"

"Well you know he's had his good periods and his not so good periods, like everybody else.  I mean take 'Weekend in New Engl...and you probably don't want to hear this," the vampire trailed off.  "But you know you could have gotten it from anywhere; it didn't have to be me."

"As though this is the type of music I am likely to run into anywhere but Caritas.  No Angel, it's time to take responsibility.  This is your fault."

_// And then the punches flew_

_And chairs were smashed in two //_

"Say that one more time and I'm going to add a nice ringing in your ears to accompany whatever tune you've got playing there, Wes."

Buffy glared at the Watcher from the now open doorway as she made her threat.  

"Buffy, it's all right," Angel said, his own aggravation fading in the face of hers.  "Wesley is tired and hurting; we all are.  And we're going to say some things we don't mean," he looked hard at Wesley, "because we can't think clearly enough not to."

"Well _I'm_ tired of him laying everything at your feet."  Buffy switched her angry gaze to Angel.  "You sugar-coated it last winter when you told me about the Darla mess, but I could read between the lines.  You needed them to take care of you for a change, and they couldn't handle it.  And then they made you feel guilty because they couldn't handle it.  But I won't let them get away with it again."

"This has nothing to do with last winter," Wesley protested.  "We've all made our peace with that."  

"No, you buried it when they buried me, because suddenly it didn't seem that important.  But it is important," she insisted.  "And it won't stay buried, any more than I did."

Wesley flinched at her imagery.  "Buffy, please."

"Don't look at me; Angel is the one you need to do the 'pretty pleases' to."  She lifted her chin proudly, seemingly calm and in control as words she couldn't stop spilled out of her mouth.  "Go ahead and ask him for forgiveness.  He'll give that away to anyone...except himself."

"Wes, I think we've said all we need to say," Angel said.  His jaw tightened as the drumbeat in his head assumed more martial rhythms.  "Could you please go back to the dining room; we'll be with you in a minute."

Angel was quiet as Wesley walked past Buffy into the hallway and closed the door behind him.  Leaning hard on the back of a kitchen chair, the vampire clutched the wood as tightly as he clung to the edges of his fraying temper. 

"You didn't have to do that, you know.  I understood where he was coming from; I just wanted to get it out between the two of us."

Buffy approached him slowly, wary of his obvious strain.  "A few hours ago you jumped down Xander's throat to defend me, but I'm not allowed to do the same for you?"

"Wesley knew what he was saying wasn't fair..."

"And that makes it better somehow?"

"And he would have apologized for it," Angel continued, his voice steadying.  As long as he focused on Buffy's troubles and not his own, he could deny the voices some of their power over him.  "Xander didn't realize, and he would have done it again.  Will do it again if you don't call him on it."

"And so will Wesley if you let him get away with it often enough," she countered, stopping in her tracks.  "He's only human, Angel; and that's not always the good thing you make it out to be.  If you let him walk all over you too many times, he'll carve 'welcome' on your forehead."

"I can stand up for myself, Buffy.  I have been for a very long time."

"But you don't," she said, slapping the palm off her hand on the kitchen table in frustration.  "If someone tries to split your head open with an axe you'll defend yourself, but not if they throw your past in your face; then you just sit back and take it like you were caught doing 70 in a school zone."  Her hand clenched into a fist on the tabletop.  "Stupid me trusted your friends not to use that against you."

"Wesley is my friend," he said.  "We don't always agree, and sometimes we even fight.  That has nothing to do with my past."

Her anger at his blindness wavered, submerging beneath hurt and worry.  "Everything has to do with your past, Angel.  Everything including why you were so eager to confront Wes...and get away from me."

Angel's grip on the chair loosened as he stood up straight to confront Buffy's accusation.

"I was a little bugged by Wesley blaming me for the song in his head, like this demon, or whatever it is, was my date for the party.  It had nothing to do with you."

_// I don't know what I'm up against_

_I don't know what it's all about_

_I've got so much to think about //_

Buffy nodded, slowly starting to move around the table towards him again.  "So the fact that you were holding my hand, and being so sweet a minute before that had nothing to do with it?"

"I don't..."

"You've been doing it since you got here," she said flatly, still stalking him.  

Her hands were extended, reaching out for the other half of herself.  Angel fought the urge to back up, but Buffy could see the way he folded into himself.  Head bent in shame, shoulders bowed with guilt; it was all distressingly familiar.  She stopped moving, unwilling to drive him still further away.

"You're doing it now," she pointed out.  "One minute you're there with me, almost like we used to be, and then you realize it and you start to back away.  Like the dancing last night.  You held me so tight on that dance floor, I almost couldn't breathe.  But when we got outside...you wouldn't even take my hand.  And when you'd forget yourself and touch me, three seconds later you'd be backing up into a wall or something."

"I'm sorry...I didn't realize," he stammered.

Buffy nodded, blinking back yet more traitorous tears. Angel always had given her mascara a run for its money.

"I know.  It's reflex.  Or actually, I think touching me is reflex, and the backing away part is learned behavior."  She looked down at her outstretched hands, a twisted smile distorting her mouth.  "Good to know those psych classes weren't a total waste."

"I don't want to confuse the issue," he insisted.  "You, me, what we can't do or have...that's settled and there's no going back.  But I want to be here for you."

_// I only wanna make you happy and if you say 'hey go away' I will //_

"To see me through this crisis, you mean?"  Her mocking tone could not hide the pain in her eyes.  "And then what?  Angel runs back to LA just as Buffy was getting used to depending on him again?"  She swallowed hard, hoping to dislodge the lump in her throat.  "No thanks.  I'm tired of chasing after you to get what I need from you."

Angel laughed harshly, her words stoking the anger that had dwelled so intimately with his guilt all these years.  The music was building again, faster and louder as it pounded through his veins.

"You're tired of chasing after me?  That's rich.  What did I ever do but run after you?"

"What for?"  Buffy's voice came out in an indignant squeak.

"To apologize, to set things straight, to make sure you were okay.  It didn't matter who started the fight; I had to be the one who made the first move to end it."

She spun on her heel and walked over to the sink, leaning heavily on the stainless steel at the edge.

_// They were closer now, Fernando_

Every hour every minute seemed to last eternally // 

"What can I say, Angel?  You're good at ending things."

Angel stared at her, the music sounding dimmer against the tears he could hear in her voice.  He tried to trace back in his mind to where things had started to fall apart, but all he could remember was that she came after him to defend him and ended up dealing far worse blows than Wesley could ever dream of rendering.

And he had given back every bit as good as he got.

"Buffy, what's going on?"  He ran his hand through his shock of dark hair as he tried to clear his mind enough to speak.  "All I came in here for was to ask Wesley to quit it with the smart-ass comments, and somehow you and I end up raking over things we settled months ago."

She hunched over the sink, drawing deep breaths before she turned on the water and splashed her face.  Angel hurriedly crossed over to the cupboard below the drain board and pulled a clean towel from the top drawer.  Wordlessly he offered it to her.

"Thanks," she murmured before burying her face in the protective mask of cotton.  

"Buffy..."

"It's the songs," she said clearly as she abandoned her hiding place.  "It has to be.  Like you said; they're making us all crazy.  There's stuff I want to say to you...but then the voices in my head start whining about Fernando, whoever he is, and I just get so confused.  I can't think; all I can do is...react."

"And our reactions aren't exactly nice, quiet ones," he agreed.  He leaned against the counter, tugging the damp towel from her fingers to press to his own aching forehead.  "We're warriors; all of us here are, in our own ways.  We attack where we sense a weakness, and we don't pull punches."

She gulped as she nodded; there had been nothing soft or temperate about their exchange.  Angel was not the only one for whom the jugular was the preferred target.

"Angel, if you and I are doing the snake and mongoose dance, then so is everyone else."  She looked at him in alarm.  "We need to get out there."

* * * * *

Buffy had to marvel at the solid construction of her old house.  She and Angel had only heard each other in the kitchen when they had the door closed, but as soon as they opened it and stepped into the hallway, a full-scale battle could be heard erupting in the dining room.

"Stop saying that, Anya!  Tara's punch was fine."  Willow stood menacingly over the former vengeance demon, but Anya was not cowed by the witch's fury.

"You don't know that.  We're all experiencing side effects, and the punch was the only thing we had in common.  I mean, sure, Angel said he didn't have any...but he probably had too much of that skanky beer Giles brought and doesn't even know what else he drank."

"Anya, you couldn't be more wrong," Angel protested as he and Buffy walked into the room. 

"You want to watch how you talk to my girl, Angel?  I thought you eighteenth-century guys were supposed to be so big on manners.  She's way older than you, so you should show her some respect."  Xander looked to Anya for his rightful measure of praise, but encountered only a frigid glare in receipt for his inspired defense of his true love.

"First of all, it couldn't have been the punch because we eight were the only ones affected," Angel said, gritting his teeth as a tambourine jingled in his inner ear.  "It must have happened after we got back here to Buffy's house.  Secondly, and more importantly, I did not have too much to drink last night."

"Then why didn't you try anything with Buffy after we all left?"  Anya looked at him with bleary, but skeptical, eyes.  "Ever since I came to Sunnydale, I've been hearing about all this hopeless passion that's supposed to be between you two.  But when you have the house to yourselves for a whole night, you don't make move one?  If that's true, I don't think it's the passion that's hopeless."

"Must everything always come down to Angel's love life?" Wesley asked peevishly.  "He's not even supposed to have one, and yet somehow that's what the conversation always revolves around."

"We could discuss your love life instead," Xander suggested. "That is, if you've ever tried going on a real date, instead of hanging around high schools hitting on the cheerleaders."

"And that remark naturally brings us back to Angel's love life."  Giles pitched another book at the table, sending three other careening to the floor when they collided.  "I do wish you would all stop your childish tirades and get back to work."

"Gee, Dad," Willow said mockingly, "Practice what you preach."

_// Welcome, welcome_

_Fah who rah-moose //_

"I am not your father."  Giles glowered at her, hurt by criticism from such an unexpected source.  "Though I have been obliged to act in that role for the past several years, with little appreciation for my efforts, I am not, thank providence, anyone's father."

_// All I want to tell you, all I want to say_

_is count me in on the journey._

_Don't expect me to stay //_

"Guys, quit it!"  Buffy's order, loud though it was, garnered little attention.  When she placed two fingers in her mouth and gave forth a piercing whistle, however, she found greater success.

"We have to stop...take your hands away from your ears and listen to me," she commanded.  When she could see they were all listening, she continued, "We have to stop fighting.  I know it seems like it distracts you from the music, but the more we fight the louder the voices get.  Am I right?"

Seven heads reluctantly nodded in agreement.

"Okay, so we can't fight any more.  We have to...fight the urge to fight, I guess."

"And we have to get some help."  Angel looked around the room, at a sea of tired faces lined with pain.  "Outside help."

"Whom do you suggest?" Wesley asked dryly.  "Dick Clark?"

"Hey!"  Buffy's hands clenched as they rested on her hips, but she forced herself to speak calmly.  "I said no fighting, and that means no snippy little Cordelia-type comments and no..."

"Cordy; that's it," Angel said with relief.  "She can do the research for us.  Well, she and Gunn and Fred.  Between the three of them they should be able to figure out what's causing all this."

"You mean between the one of her," Wesley corrected him, this time only weariness coloring his voice.  "Gunn was taking Fred to her family reunion in San Francisco this weekend; don't you remember?"

Buffy glanced quickly at Angel, searching his pale face for signs of distress or discomfort.

"So, Fred is dating Gunn?" she asked, hoping she sounded only casually interested.  "You never mentioned that."

Angel shrugged, not understanding the significance of the gossip.

"They've been dating for a little while.  Does it matter, other than it keeping them busy this weekend?"

She blinked her eyes and wondered how a man so innocent had managed to survive all these years without feminine assistance.

"Well it would have been nice if you'd mentioned it, say, last night.  You know, when I was asking about her and, umm, you."  She flushed and looked away.

Angel reacted without thinking, reaching out to run a hand up and down her back.  When he realized what he was doing, his next instinct was to jerk his hand away.  But even through the din in his head, he could still remember Buffy's words.  Trying to focus on her rather than the taunting refrain, he continued his soothing rhythm after only the briefest interruption.

"Would it have made you feel better if I said she was unavailable, rather than that I wasn't actually interested?"

"Both would have been nice," she mumbled.  

"And we're back to 'The Young and the Possessed' after that brief message from our sponsors."  Xander's sarcasm had a sharper edge than usual as both the level of his frustration, and the pitch of his tiny serenaders, increased.  "Can we drop the mating calls long enough for an actual phone call?  Say to Cordelia?"

"You're right, you're right," Angel muttered.  "I'll go call her."  

"I'll come with," Buffy volunteered.  She turned slightly and took Angel's hand as it slipped away from her back.  "She's not going to react too well if the music starts to get the best of you and you go on the offensive."

Angel smiled at her, forcing his mind to function over the tumult of his internal concert.  "And you're so famous for keeping your temper with Cordy?" he asked lightly.

"No, but that's why it makes sense.  Me she expects to be hostile."  She squeezed Angel's hand as she started to lead him to the hall and the telephone.  "It's our little way of communicating."

* * * * *

"Cordelia will call us back as soon as she knows anything," Angel reported a few minutes later.  He laid the handset carefully back into the cradle and rubbed the back of his neck.  "She's going to try and get a hold of Gunn and Fred too; I know they'll help if they can.  Maybe they can do some net surfing from San Francisco and Cordy can use my library."

Buffy's hand covered his, her warm fingers nudging his cooler ones out of the way as she took charge of the massage therapy.

"They'll take care of it," she said soothingly, despite private reservations.  "You're always saying how much smarter Cordy is than we gave her credit for being...not that I exactly want to hear you praising other women you understand, but I suppose in this case it's to the good."

He slid around on the wooden chair until he could face her.  Deliberately keeping his tone neutral, he asked, "And how much of the time we've had together in the past few years have I spent praising other women?"  

She could feel the song digging a trench in her brain from sheer repetition; it scattered her thoughts and muddled already fragile memories.  Still, her own struggles made her realize her how hard Angel must be fighting against the tide to stay so calm, and she was determined to meet him halfway.

Cordelia...and Fred...and Faith...and Fernando, for that matter, be damned.

"More than is healthy around a slightly jealous Slayer who happens to also be an unwilling ex."  Her smile removed the sting from her words, but Angel still took her grievance seriously.

"I'm sorry," he said gravely.  "Maybe I just needed...maybe I needed to prove I could see something in my life besides you.  Since you weren't a possibility anymore."

For the briefest of instants, the music in Angel's head lost cohesion; its grip on his mind loosening to allow for free thought.  Then, as suddenly as it had occurred, the moment was over and the song returned full force.

_// I think I love you – isn't that what life is made of?_

_Though it worries me to say that I never felt this way //_

"Angel," she said slowly, her hand still resting just above his collar.  "I know when this is all over you'll probably want to get the hell out of Sunnydale as fast as that old clunker of yours can go, but...could you maybe stick around just a little while?  We've done more fighting than talking since you've been here..."

_// Though I never thought that we could lose_

_There's no regret //_

She clung fast to her own thoughts, as the music tried to brush them aside.  "And I really don't want...well, I don't want you to think that every time you come back it's got to be some major deal.  I mean crisis."  Her hand fluttered away from his neck as she nervously corrected herself.  "It is kind of a major deal, I guess...I mean I know...but I don't want it always to be about bad things when you come here."

"Here?" Angel asked softly, watching her face with great care.

She met his dark eyes steadily, hoping she wouldn't frighten him away.

"Home," she said firmly.  "When you come home."

* * * * *

Angel smiled at Buffy, a faint and guilty pleasure piercing his heart at the underlying plea in her brief words.

"I wasn't sure you still thought of Sunnydale as my..."

_// Do you think I have a case?  Let me ask you to your face_

_Do you think you love me? //_

Xander stumbled into the hallway, a fretful Anya clinging to his arm.

"Did you get hold of Cordy?" he asked, unaware of other questions still hanging in the air.  "Is she going to do something about all this?"

"Can she do something about all this?" Anya asked, feeling that was more to the point.  "I don't remember her being very bright, or particularly good at thinking things through.  She got mad at Willow, so she wished Buffy away instead, and ended up killing all of you, even..."

_// I'll give you three chances_

_and if you don't behave,_

_I'll turn you into a goon //_

"Even herself," Anya finished with a groan.  "Xander.  Aspirin.  Many, many aspirin.  Now."

"Cordelia can handle this," Angel said.  "There's a lot more to her than you know."  He quirked a half-smile at Buffy as he continued, "And I say that freely admitting a certain brotherly prejudice."

"Brother?"  Anya blinked at him.  "Just how old is Cordelia?"

"Xander, take Anya upstairs; there's aspirin in the medicine chest."  Buffy took Xander by the arm and turned him to face the staircase.  "Then why don't you guys sack out in...in my mom's room...until Cordy calls back."

Angel stood up quickly, ranging himself by Buffy's side.  "That's a good idea.  Tara and Willow can take Dawn's room, Giles can have yours, and Wes can take the couch."  

_// I'm sleeping and right in the middle of a good dream_

_like all at once I wake up from something that keeps knocking_

_at my brain //_

"We can...I don't know...hang out in the kitchen or something."  He looked pointedly into the living room.  "We need to stay in small groups, otherwise it's too tempting to fight to distract ourselves."

"And lack of consciousness would only help the situation," she agreed.  "But why should we bother with the kitchen?  We can't sleep there, and if we're going to end up fighting anyway, why don't we put it to good use?  We can go to the Magic Box and train, just like we talked about."

He crossed his arms over his chest and stared at her.  "The question didn't occur to me last night, but...how am I supposed to get there?  It's broad daylight."

Xander took his hand off the banister long enough to wave away the vampire's objection.  "Oh Spike did it all the time.  A blanket over the head until you get to the car, tinted windows on said car, and then in through the carport at the shop." The sound of his voice faded as he and Anya rounded the corner at the top of the stairs.  "Piece of cake."

"Sounds like Spike had it down to a science," Angel commented, as one black eyebrow arched in a mute question.

Buffy carefully avoided Angel's eyes, but she could feel them boring into the side of her skull as she forced herself to explain a situation she had been hoping to bury unmentioned.

"He kind of hung out here for a while last year," she said, "and umm, the year before that.  "  She winced in anticipation of an outburst.  "Both the house and Giles' shop, I mean.  He had...that is he thought he had, a little crush on me."

Silence; she heard nothing but silence.  Unnerving, but still better than yelling, especially with the shape her head was in today.

"It took me a while to figure it out," Buffy admitted.  The past replayed before her mind's eye as she spoke, with an unusual soundtrack accompanying it.  "I know it didn't start with the big 'O;" he was perfectly normal, well, normal for Spike...playing the usual game of trying to kill me without getting his chip dirty...for the longest time after his little nip and tuck.  But then Mom started getting those awful headaches."  

She paused, trying to control the slight tremble in her voice; this was about Spike, not her mother.  Tears had no place in this story.  

"You know how Spike is," she resumed a moment later, concentrating on the question at hand.  "It turns him on to have a helpless female around the crypt, like your favorite psycho and mine, Drusilla.  So with Mom sick...and then later, when Glory amped up the Dawn patrols...I guess he thought I'd feel right at home in the china doll cabinet where Dru used to stand."  Buffy looked down at her twisting hands; she wasn't proud of the next part.  "And, for about ten seconds...he almost had me convinced too."

Angel could feel the borrowed blood in his veins start a metaphorical boil, but he wasn't sure how much was due to the endless round of pop music reverberating in his head, and how much was good old-fashioned jealousy.  Add in an honest dislike of the childe who had repeatedly tried to try to kill him, and Buffy, and the demon within him was almost tap-dancing with glee.  It took every ounce of the self-control he had learned in the past 100 years to hold back the anger, but he blessed that restraint when he recognized the uncertainty in Buffy's voice.

"I find that hard to believe."  His voice was soft, but assured.  "You would have kicked out the glass, and a few of his teeth, before he got the cabinet door closed." 

She took heart from his faint smile; it contained an element of pain she attributed as much to Dru-guilt as the musical free-for-all in his cranium, but she could handle either one of them if he'd let her.

"Says the man who always knew enough not to put me in one."

Angel tried to shrug off the compliment, though he couldn't suppress a tiny flare of pride.  "What can I say; I was never one for playing with dolls." 

Buffy balled up her fists and assumed a fighting stance, taking a mock jab at his shoulder.  "Any interest in fighting with one?  You know, the fun kind of fighting."

He rubbed his tight forehead as the instrumental break began anew.  "As long as you promise not to whistle a happy tune." 

* * * * *

Buffy unlocked the door to her house, pushing it in slowly as she listened for any unusual noises.  The first floor seemed comfortably quiet, but she could hear a creak from one of the upstairs floorboards that signaled movement in her mother's bedroom.  Since she had offered that room to Xander and Anya, she wasn't exactly anxious to investigate, but she would never forgive herself if the music had led their usual squabbling to injury, rather than make-up sex, and she failed to save them out of squeamishness.

On the other, oddly brighter, hand, it was possible there was some other creature in the room with them making that noise.  A demon perhaps, checking on his handiwork...

"Buffy, can we hurry this up please?"  Angel's voice was somewhat muffled by the blanket over his head, but his anxiety was coming through loud and clear.  "I'm not really wild about tan lines, you know."

"Oops, sorry."  

She quickly pushed the door open all the way and walked into the house, turning back to pull Angel in as well.  As soon as he was safely inside, she kicked the door closed and yanked the blanket from over his head.

"I just wanted to listen for battle cries," she explained in a low voice as she reached up to smooth the unruly spikes of his dark hair.  "We've been pounding on each other for the past few hours, or at least trying to.  I just wanted to make sure they haven't been too.  None of them are really built for it."

"If they were lucky, they slept through it."  Angel peered around the corner of the archway into the living room.  "Looks like Wesley did at least."

"No he didn't," came the weary contradiction from the sofa.  "He tried to read and he tried to watch television, but mostly he hummed."  Wesley sat up slowly, blinking his bloodshot eyes at the couple in the archway.  "And waited for a call from Cordelia of course.  No luck there either."

Angel glanced at Buffy, sharing a worried frown.  "She should have at least called by now.  Even when she doesn't find anything she calls in every hour or so to let us know how hard she's working while she's not finding anything."  He checked his watch.  "It's been almost four hours now."

"Maybe she had to go to an actual library or something.  They kind of frown on making frequent phone calls."  Buffy slid her gaze back towards the staircase.  "Any word from the rest of the crew?"

"No one has come down, if that's what you mean," Wesley answered.  "But I've also heard a television going up there, and a great deal of pacing.  I think we've all been trying to avoid each other as assiduously as we're avoiding our own thoughts."

"Great world, isn't it, where you're trapped in your own skull?"  Buffy began drumming her fingers on the arm of the chair, stopping only when she realized she was doing it to the beat.

"So now what do we do?"  Angel looked back at the scattered piles of books covering the dining room table.  "Do we try to research again while we're waiting for Cordy or should we start calling around for some more help?  Maybe it's too much for one person after all."

Buffy's quick ears caught the sound of footsteps on her front path at almost the same time as Angel's did.  She walked over to the door before the bell rang, pulling it open to reveal a surprised Cordelia.

"Jeeze, and I thought Angel had bat hearing.  You really know how to spoil a grand entrance, don't you Buffy?"  Cordelia looked pointedly at the Slayer as she continued to block the doorway.  "Excuse me, do you want help or should I just drive two hours back to LA and leave you to your free concert series?"

"Oh, yeah, sorry."  Buffy backed away from the door, gesturing for Cordelia to come in.  "We weren't expecting you, that's all.  We thought you'd call."

"And spoil my moment of triumph?"  She raised a hand to flip a lock of hair off of her face as she strolled into the living room.  "Cordelia to the rescue, against all odds?  Not on the likely."

"Then you found something?"  Angel was at her side in an instant, tugging on her arm.  "Is it a demon or a spell?"

"Or both?" Wesley chimed in.

Cordelia sauntered around the room, pausing to lift the corner of a comforter from atop the chair where Wesley had flung it.  "Love what you've done with the place, Buffy.  Nothing says home like a blanket fort in the living room."

"Cordelia," Angel growled.  

She raised her hands in surrender.  "Okay, okay.  But I think I deserve an audience to appreciate all my hard work.  Where's the rest of the choir?"

"I'll get them," Buffy said quickly.  "You two get her ready to explain."

A few minutes later Cordelia faced her tired, grumpy listeners, in a disheveled suburban living room, to present a discourse on demons.  It wasn't exactly the acting break she had been dreaming of, but she did relish the chance to be the acknowledged star of the show for a change.

"Let me see," she said, pacing back and forth at the end of the room.  "Where to begin?  My hours of tireless research?  The rehearsal time I sacrificed to save you from the Up With People monster?"  She tilted her head to the side and tapped her chin as she luxuriated in the attention from her captive audience.  "The eyestrain?  The..."

"The money spent on a dialogue coach for this spiffy opening scene?"  Buffy asked tightly.  "How about we just shortcut to the part where you tell us how to kill it?  Assuming it is an it, of course, and not an...it."

"It is," Cordelia answered serenely.  "And you can't."

Willow frowned at the unsatisfactory answer; it sounded to her like Cordelia had a lot to learn about being Research Girl.  

"Why not?  I think we've pretty well established it's not trying to do us any favors."

_// Welcome Christmas, fah who rah-moose_

_Welcome Christmas, dah who dah-moose //_

"Killing it won't do any good," Cordelia explained.  "It's already infected you."

"Infected?"  Angel started to pace.  "It infected all of us?  At the same time?  Or did we infect each other?"

"That point is still a little less than pointy."  Cordelia shook her head regretfully.  "Lorne didn't say...I mean the books didn't say...I mean, umm," she ground to a stop, casting a guilty glance at Angel.

"Lorne told you about the demon?" the vampire guessed.

"Well..." she said slowly, "you said it had to do with music...cheesy music to be specific, and I figured, who knows cheesy music better than Lorne?"  

"I can think of a few," Wesley said tartly.  

Angel shot Wesley a sour glance before turning back to Cordelia.  "So what exactly did he say it was?  And what are we supposed to do about it?"

"It's called a Glissanderous demon.  And the only way to, umm, disinfect yourselves is to sing your songs through to the end."

"What did you say?"  Giles was aghast at the highly unscientific, and unmagickal, solution.  "We sing...and that makes everything all right?"

"Well not for those who have to listen," Cordelia snapped.  "But yeah, that's the only way to banish the demon's touch from your brains."

"But that's preposterous," Wesley protested.

"And impossible," Xander piped up.  "I don't know all the words to my song."  He looked quickly around the room.  "Because it's so unfamiliar to me.  Because I wouldn't try to commit something like that to memory even if..."

"We get it, Xand."  Buffy halted his defense of his manhood with a gesture and a meaningful look.  "I'm stuck too, though.  The song is starting to feel familiar to me, and not just from the past eon or so of listening to it circling my brain cells.  But I know I don't remember all the words."

Cordelia nodded, though it was not without a heavy sigh.

"That's why I came, and why I brought a van.  We're going to Caritas."  She wrinkled her nose and turned to stare pointedly at Buffy and Angel.  "After those of us who've been playing gladiator a little too hard take a shower."

"Caritas?" Wesley asked.  "But why?"

"Where is Caritas?"

"What is a Caritas?"

Cordelia held up her hands to ward off the chorus of questions.  "Hey, hey, hey; this is not my idea.  Lorne thought you might not know all the words; otherwise you would have been able to dig yourselves out by now.  Most people do, you know," she said with a sniff.  "But he has those little tele-prompters at his club for karaoke, and he said he would round up the music if I could call him with a playlist."

"So you mean we're all going to a karaoke bar, and sing these songs to each other?"  Xander asked faintly.  "Gulp."

_// Though the mountains divide_

_And the oceans are wide_

_It's a small world after all //_

"Well, that's actually only part of it," Cordelia said hesitantly.  "The rest Lorne is going to have to explain himself."

* * * * *

To Be Continued 


	5. Chapter 5

Second Verse, Same as the First Part 5 

**By Gem, DeeJay & PJ**

One by one the Scoobies, current and former, trooped into Caritas, with Angel leading the way and Cordelia bringing up the rear as guard and chief enforcer.  Feet were dragging and heads hung low, bowed with the weight of note upon relentless note.  Lorne hadn't seen such a pathetic display of humanity since "Big Brother" went off the air.

"Well, well.  Look what the cat dragged in."

Cordelia scowled at him as she threw her purse on the bar.  "Hey, you try hanging with eight cranky Osmond-nots for two hours in an enclosed car...no, an enclosed van, for god's sake...and see how good you look."

The Host smiled pityingly at her as he slipped behind the bar and began filling glasses with club soda.  "Actually sweetie, I was referring to your musically challenged companions.  You look divine; they look devoured."

Slightly mollified, Cordelia fluffed her hair and graciously accepted the proffered glass.

"They do look like they just kicked off the island; I'll give you that one.  But save a little pity for me, please.  My mission of mercy was pretty unmerciful."  She frowned.  "Did that come out the way I meant it to?  Because I really did suffer.  Honest."

"I believe you, doll."  He carried the tray of drinks over to the nearest table, motioning for the crowd standing in the doorway to join him.  "Come.  Sit.  Talk. I've closed the club for our little private party so we can really get to know each other."  

Angel remembered his manners, and began the introductions as the Scoobies shuffled over to the table.

"Lorne, this is Buffy, Willow, Tara, Anya, Giles and Xander.  Everyone, this is Lorne, the owner of Caritas."

"Actually, I prefer to be known as the Host."  Lorne nodded to each of his guests in turn, taking coats as they shed them.  "Charmed, I'm sure."

Buffy looked blearily into the red eyes of the strange green demon.  His fashion sense was a little louder than her troubled mind could handle comfortably, but his voice sounded kind and cheerful.  Moreover, Angel trusted him enough to come here without question...and Angel questioned everything.

"You're Lorne?" she asked doubtfully, holding out her hand.  Lorne chucked the pile of coats on a nearby table and took her hand in both of his, beaming with delight.

"I am indeed, my sweet.  And though your pretty face isn't familiar, I do seem to know that soul."  He leaned forward; peering into her startled hazel eyes, then switched his gaze to Angel.  

"Mmm, just as I thought," he murmured.  "Angel-cakes, after this is all over...we need to talk."

"I thought...thought we were just supposed to sing," Buffy mumbled, turning to Angel with a puzzled frown.  A second later she shook her head, bumping into him as she momentarily lost her balance.  "I feel...different here.  It's kind of like surfacing too fast when you dive, but my head...it's a little clearer all the sudden."  

"Mine too."  Willow glanced at Tara, receiving a faint nod in response to her unasked question.

The Host smiled as he gestured expansively.  "Welcome to Caritas.  No demonic violence is allowed here, and that includes spells.  Cuts down on breakage, and you should see what that does for my insurance rates."

Giles was intrigued, both by the demon and his business acumen.  "Really?  It lowers the rates down that much?  I own a magick shop, you see, and well, I'm afraid we do suffer a bit of breakage courtesy of some of our demonic clientele.  Or rather, the things hunting them."  He reached into his coat pocket, searching for a pencil.  "Now exactly how much..."

"Giles, could you guys possibly talk actuarial tables later?"  Xander shifted his weight from one foot to the other, trying to restrain from tapping out an inner beat.  "Some of us have lives we'd prefer to start leading without a soundtrack."

Giles stood up a little straighter, raising a hand to adjust his glasses.  "Umm, yes, of course.  Mr., umm. Lorne, are you trying to say just being here is sufficient to lift this spell?  Because I do still hear the music; it's just a bit...more controllable."

Lorne lifted an eyebrow.  "Aren't we the impatient one?  I'm a demon, not Harry Houdini.  Though he...well, that's neither here nor there."  He rubbed his hands together briskly.  "In any case, the best I can do is cut down on the white noise; you have to solve your own problems with the spell."

"Our problem is the spell," Xander groaned.  He flopped down in a chair, hooking his foot around the leg of the one next to his and pulling it out for Anya.  

"Oh, I highly doubt that.  A Glissanderous wouldn't be able to cause this kind of damage without a lot of help, and I don't mean from Dial-A-Demon.  No, you all gave it the power, and it went to town with it."

"But we didn't do anything," Willow protested as she chose seats for herself and Tara.  "We were having a party, that's all.  Barbecued wings, cookies, some punch..." she turned to Anya, who sagged against Xander's side, "and not one word about Tara's punch, Anya."  Willow faced Lorne again, her eyes wide with confusion.  "Anyway, we ate, and talked and sang and..."

"Sang?"  Lorne pounced on the word.  He yanked back a chair and sat down, resting his elbows on the table so he could prop his face up between his two fists.  "What did you sing, oh little witch-let of mine?"

Willow made a face at the nickname, but decided sticking out her tongue would be childish.  Satisfying...but childish.

"It was nothing.  Just a little good luck spell."  She gestured to Xander and Anya.  "It was a present from Tara and I to Xander and Anya.  Best wishes for the future, long life, happy marriage; that sort of thing."

"A Hallmark for the Beltane crowd; I get it."  Lorne nodded in satisfaction.  "Do you have the spell with you, or can you write it down for me?  I think I know how this all happened, but that would clinch it."

Tara's brow wrinkled as she anxiously took her place next to Willow.  "I think I have it in my purse," she answered.  "I was afraid...well, I thought I'd forget the words.  I didn't want to improvise.  Not with a spell."

"Mmm, very prudent, I'm sure," was all Lorne said, but he looked less than impressed by their precautions.

Tara quickly dug through her purse and produced a wrinkled sheet of loose-leaf paper, which the Host seized with alacrity.  He scanned the spell, mumbling to himself and shaking his head.  Finally he placed the paper on the table and folded his hands over it.

"Well children, you've made quite the little mess, haven't you?"

"You said you knew how to fix it.'' Anya's voice was stronger now, and considerably sharper as she sat up straighter in her chair.  "Do you or don't you?"

"Oh yes, but I have to say you've earned this one." He shook his head again as he tapped the spell for emphasis.   "You didn't just invite the Glissanderous to your party; you summoned it."

"But we didn't even see a demon," Anya wailed.  "Shouldn't he have made some sort of big, break-the-front-window sort of entrance?  That's how demons usually get into Buffy's house."

"For that he'd need an actual body, and he, or possibly she, doesn't have one.  Not with him, anyway."

"Did he leave it in his coat pocket or something?" Xander asked skeptically.  

Giles peered over the rim of his glasses.  "It occurs to me that in all my studies I have never come across a Glissanderous demon, as you say this creature is.  How is it that you seem to be acquainted with the species?"  

"Look around you."  Lorne waved his hand to display his pride and joy.  "You think a karaoke bar wouldn't attract a music-loving demon?"

"Frankly, no."  Wesley shook his head.  "I'm forced to concur with Mr. Gi...Rupert.  It seems odd that you would know both the problem and the solution immediately."

Lorne cocked his head and smiled.  "Jealous?"

"Lorne, could you please just answer the question?"  Angel pulled a chair out for Buffy and sat down next to her at the table, with the Host on his other side.  "What's the big mystery anyway?"

Lorne spread his hands flat on the table, his ruby-red nails catching the light of the candle in the centerpiece.  

"It's...well, it's a little on the embarrassing side," he confessed.

Wesley suddenly blushed, as a mortifying thought occurred to him.  "Dear Lord, it's not...that is to say...is it yours?  Your...child?"

Lorne started to chuckle, though one hand flew to his mouth to hide the depth of his amusement.  "Good heavens, no!  It's probably older than Angel, and certainly no offspring of mine.  Though I'll grant you, he'd be a lot more fun at a family party than some of my relations."

"So what's the deal?"  Cordelia demanded.  "You know, I got stuck pulling these guys from the teeth...or vocal cords or whatever...of this demon.  If anyone deserves the dirt, I do."  She leaned across the table, eyes glittering dangerously in the candlelight.  "So the first person to start singing better be you."

"All right, all right," Lorne conceded with a sigh.  "I told you there was no music on Pylea, right?  That's my home dimension," he explained to the out-of-towners.  "Well, now behold the reason why.  Or not behold, actually, since the little buggers can't exactly manifest in this dimension.  The closest they get is a bad imitation of San Francisco on a rainy night."

"So they're from Pylea," Angel mused.  "And the reason they left?  Couldn't find a good agent?"

"They were banished, along with music, ages ago," Lorne explained.

"No music on this Pylea at all?" Xander asked.  "Right now that sounds like my kind of town, er, dimension."

"You should go there," Cordelia suggested with a sickly sweet smile.  "You'd love it.  I know I'd love thinking of you there."

Lorne flashed Cordelia a wicked grin, but decided to forgo asking the questions that were springing to his mind, at least for now.

"The Glissanderous are actually some sort of cousin to chaos demons," he said instead.  "But they use music to get their jollies.  You've all been touched by one before, I'm sure.  You get a song in your head, and you keep on asking people if they remember the rest of the words, and soon they start singing it...it goes around like the flu, but with less of the heave-ho's."

"Speak for yourself," Xander groaned.

"But we've all got different songs," Willow protested.  "That doesn't sound like the same m.o. at all."  She saw the curious looks directed at her and self-consciously shrugged them off.  "What?  There was a 'Cagney & Lacey' marathon on last week and I was home sick.  A broad vocabulary is a sign of a broad mind."

"That's why I wanted to see the spell."  Lorne patted the wrinkled sheet of notebook paper.  "Glissanderous...Glissanderi?...no matter…they're noted for the stuck needle effect, but they're pretty much one-note players.  To give you a whole jukebox full requires a little more oom pah pah than they can usually command.  This spell gave him that power, though."

"It was just a good luck spell.  There was no dark magic involved, and it didn't even mention music."  Tara's forehead wrinkled in pained confusion.  "It doesn't make any sense."

"It does if you look at some of your musical selections."  Lorne pushed his chair back from the table and hurried back to the end of the bar to retrieve a sheaf of papers.  "I think I did pretty well getting them together, using the bits and pieces Cordy told me over the phone.  These, my friends, are the answers to your problems.  Or, more accurately, the explanation of your problems."

Cordelia nodded at the pages as Lorne set them down on the table.  "You've got that right.  Even admitting to knowing some of these songs says way more about these guys than I feel comfortable with."  She grinned mischievously.  "The only thing I can't figure out is how Wesley ended up with Angel's song."

"I told you!" Wesley burst out.

"Wes, calm down," Angel directed.  "Lorne, you want to back up a few steps for those of us still stuck at the overture?"

Lorne picked up the papers and waved them in the air.  "These are your hopes or your fears, your past or your future; only you can say which.  That little spell the teen witches cooked up was supposed to be about a rose-covered cottage brand of future, but it was colored with so much fear it's a wonder you didn't suck in a full-blooded chaos demon and a natural disaster to boot."  He looked from one bewildered face to another.  "As it is, count yourselves lucky to get off with a little slap upside the head from the Glissanderous that just might teach you something."

"That'll be the day," Cordelia muttered darkly.

"So those songs all mean something?"  Buffy frowned as she gestured to the papers still tightly clenched in Lorne's fist.  "But I don't even remember enough of my song to know who sang it, let alone know what it means to my life."

"And that, sweet child, is why you're here."  Lorne released his grip on the pages and gently patted Buffy on the hand.  "You dive right into that song, and just let the music carry you away.  Sooner or later it will remind you of what you've been trying so hard not to see.  Once you face the boogeying monster, you'll be that much closer to laying it to rest."

"But the song will be gone after we finish singing, right?" Anya asked anxiously.  "Cordelia said singing it would make it go away."  She glared at her fiancée's ex-girlfriend.  "She promised."

Cordelia held up her palms in front of her face.  "I promised not to drive the van into a ravine on the way here just to stop the annoying, and might I add, off-key, humming; that was the extent of my promising to date."

"I was not off-key," Giles sniffed.  "You are obviously somewhat tone-deaf, Cordelia."

"No, that would be Angel," she sighed.

"The song will disappear after you finish singing it," the Host assured them.  "But you're only laying yourself open to more trouble if you don't figure out where it's coming from.  There's more than one type of demon out there, you know.  And the big uglies of them are just itching to find a weak spot."

"So you're like a musical therapist now."  Cordelia beamed at Lorne, leaning forward to push gently at his shoulder.  "That is so cool.  Do you think there's any money in it?"

"Sadly, no.  Just the satisfaction of a job well done."  Lorne eyed his patients speculatively.  "And the possibility of bleeding eardrums."

Cordelia nodded sagely.  "I hear you."

"Could we possibly get on with this?"  Giles glared at Cordelia before focusing his attention on Lorne.  "Though I do vaguely recall the song I've been hearing, I'm afraid I will require some assistance with the specific lyrics.  Did you manage to find them?" he asked, nodding his head at the sheaf of papers resting on the table in front of Lorne.

Lorne began to shuffle through the small pile of lyrics until he found the correct sheet.  "I sure did, but you for one did not make it easy.  You couldn't have picked something from 'The Wall'?"

Giles smiled frostily as he accepted the proffered page.  "So sorry for the inconvenience," he murmured with something less than sincerity.

A confused frown chased across Xander's face.  "Wait, I thought we were going to use those little tele-prompters for the lyrics."

Lorne shook his head regretfully.  "Some of you, yes.  But I couldn't get them all ready for the screen on such short notice.  Not to mention having room on the stage."

Xander paled.  "We have to go on stage?  Couldn't we just...you know...right here?" he asked, gesturing to the table.

"Sorry, tough guy.  No 'you-knowing' at the tables in Caritas."  He looked quickly through the pages and pulled one out to hand to Xander.  "You want to sing; you get up on the stage."

"Oh this day gets better and better," Xander muttered as he took his lyrics from the Host.

"Let's see, who's up next?" Lorne caroled.  "Wesley, old fellow, yours was already loaded and ready to go; no need to look that one up."  He patted Angel on the back.  "We try to keep certain favorites available for our more faithful clientele."

"It's not...oh forget it," Angel grumbled.  "What about mine?"  

Lorne smiled slowly.  "Oh it's loaded too...if you really need the help."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Dorothy, Dorothy, Dorothy."  Lorne made a great show of shaking his head, as a little smirk played on his lips.  "You always seem to have your ticket home stamped and ready, but you're too busy tripping over your feet to notice those stunning ruby pumps they're sporting."

Xander grinned, feeling the first stirrings of happiness since he'd woken up that morning.  "You know, I think I like this guy after all," he confided in Anya.

"Lorne..." Angel said warningly.

"Angel," said Buffy quietly, laying her hand gently on the vampire's arm.  "Sing now; pummel later."

Lorne beamed at her.  "Oh she's darling, Angel; just the match for a big lug like you.  And lucky for you, my ferocious little songbird, the 70s are really big in the karaoke biz.  You're also loaded and ready to go."

Buffy raised an eyebrow.  "Seventies?  Is that where this comes from?  But I wasn't even born yet."

"Lambchop, the management claims no responsibility for the psychoses of the patrons.  We only serve to soothe the troubled soul."

"That's sweet," Tara said softly.  "The, umm, soothing souls part, I mean."

Lorne reached over and tweaked her nose between his thumb and forefinger before he retrieved two sheets of paper from the dwindling pile.

"Somehow, precious, I just knew this one was yours.  Sorry to say dead teenagers songs aren't readily available at your average karaoke bar...or even an above average one like Caritas.  I did, however, find these lyrics pretty quickly with the help of my new bartender."  He turned to Wesley and Angel.  "You know him; Rudolfo, the Asrac demon.  They're so sentimental."

"What about mine?" Willow asked anxiously.  "It's definitely not something you'd sing in a place like this...which is a very nice place..." she stammered, "but not the type of place where you'd sing that type of song."

"I should say not."  Lorne was the picture of offended majesty.  "It goes against my principles to even have it sung here, but since this is an extreme situation..."

"You sound like my father," Willow said glumly.  A moment later she frowned.  "You're not...I mean I thought it was kind of a human religion, but it is awfully old so I suppose...but you're not...are you?"

"Indeed I am, but I don't know what religion has to do with it.  No matter how hard the good doctor tried to sell the whole fairy tale ending, that old demon never did find religion.  He got tired of the singing, the same as you have, so he gave back the presents just to shut them up."

"Wait...what?  What old demon?"  Willow glanced from one blank face to another.  "Does anyone know what he's talking about?"

"The Grinch," Lorne said, leaning back in his chair.  "Who else?"

"So you're saying the Grinch...Dr. Seuss' 'Grinch Who Stole Christmas'...was real?"  Since Lorne was doing his best to help them, Tara tried not to sound too doubtful, but she fighting a losing battle.

"Of course he was.  He's a cousin of mine."  Lorne raised a green hand to run down his long pointed chin.  "Can't you see the family resemblance?"

"Okay, okay."  Xander held up his hands in surrender.  "Enough with the teasing of the small town yokels.  You can't honestly expect me to believe that the Grinch was not only real, but that he was a relative of yours."

Lorne watched Xander silently for a moment, until the boy began to squirm.  

"No," the Host answered slowly, "I can't expect you to believe."  A wide smile crept across his face, lifting the edges of his bright red lips until they seemed about to touch his ears, exposing a multitude of shining white teeth.  "But you'll always wonder."

Willow spoke to break the dead silence that followed Lorne's prediction.

"So, umm, could you find my song?"

Lorne drew a deep breath and returned to the business at hand.  "In a way.  Have you ever seen those charming little 'follow the bouncing ball' sing-a-long tapes?"

"Well then, we're all set," Giles said with satisfaction.  "Except...oh dear, what about Anya?"

"I looked and I looked," Lorne answered, waving around the remaining sheets of paper.  "I found some that seemed to have similar ideas, or maybe a word here and there...but I couldn't find one that had all the lyrics she told Cordelia."  He folded his hands together in supplication as he faced Anya.  "I'm so sorry, but I don't know what we're going to do for you."

Anya stiffened her spine and drew a long shuddering breath.  "It's okay," she said bravely.  "I think I actually know all of mine.  Dawn, that little wretch..." she spared time for a quick scowl at Buffy, "kept singing it in front of me before she went to camp."

"But honey, why didn't you just sing it for us when Cordy told us that was how to get rid of the demon's touch?"  Xander rubbed her back, trying to show his support.  "You could have been done with this mess two hours ago."

"I couldn't face it alone," she said, her lower lip quivering in earnest.  "It's just too horrible."

"Well you're not alone now, sunshine."  Lorne smiled fondly at her as he waved to the stage.  "Everybody up.  It's time to start the concert."

"Wait, Lorne.  Should you be here for this?"  Angel glanced worriedly from Cordelia to Wesley.  "I mean all of us singing at the same time...it's going to get pretty messy."

"Oh sure, worry about Lorne's delicate ears," Cordelia sniffed.  "I'm here too, you know."

Angel smiled sourly.  "I meant because of the auras.  He's going to get blasted if we all start singing at once."

"Don't worry about me, Angel-face.  I've already taken preventive measures."  He waved his still untouched drink in the air.  "You're all doing club soda shooters.  But for me...gin."  He took a hefty swig and hissed through his clenched teeth. "Double."

* * * * *

They slowly climbed up on the stage and ranged themselves across it.  Lorne had assembled the prompters where he guessed certain individuals would stand, and by and large he had assumed correctly.  Angel took the far end, with Buffy next to him and Willow on her other side.  Next came Tara, and then Giles, with Wesley next to him.  The last in the group to assume their places were the reluctant Xander and Anya.

"I still think this is a bad idea," Xander called, nervously shuffling his single sheet of paper from one hand to the other.

Lorne raised his glass to Cordelia.  "We have to listen to all of them at once and _he_ thinks this is a bad idea."

"You don't have any more of that gin, do you?" she asked, already looking slightly queasy.

"Darling child, this is a bar," he said patiently.  "Of course I do. And as soon as you have that next birthday," he continued in the face of her brightening smile, "you can have some of it."

"But..."

"Meanwhile," he reached into his coat pocket, "earplugs."

"It's not the same," she grumbled, putting the plugs in her ears.

Lorne clapped his hands together, calling his performers to attention.  "I'll start the machines in just a moment, but they will be running lyrics only.  It hardly seemed fair for some of you to have music and others not, so you'll all be singing a cappella."

"Oh dear Lord," Wesley blurted out, glancing at Angel before he could control himself.

"Gee Wes, I must have missed seeing that Grammy on your bookcase the last time I was over," the vampire growled.

"Now, now, children, play nice," Lorne scolded.  "So, who wants to be a big brave camper and start us out?"  He ran an appraising gaze from one end of the stage to the other.  "Hands?"

Anya's left hand jerkily rose in the air.  "I'll do it."

Xander squeezed her right hand.  "I'm right here with you, An."

She gently pulled her hand free of his grasp and held it out in front of her, the first two fingers extended in a V-shape.  Slowly she moved her arm horizontally in front of her body in an up-and-down pattern as she began to sing in a quavering voice:

_// Little Rabbit Foo Foo, hoppin' through the forest_

_Scoopin' up the field mice and boppin' 'em on the head //_

Lorne smiled encouragingly at her before he leaned across the table to whisper to Cordelia.  "Save my place while I get the rest of that bottle of gin.  This is going to take more than one teensy little double."

One by one they all joined in with their own songs, each reluctantly adding his or her strained voice to the mélange of sound.  It wasn't easy for any of them to concentrate on one song, when so many words and tunes were being given freedom.  Harder still to handle were the images that slowly began to form as the lyrics sorted themselves out and told their own stories.

* * * * *

_// There's so much that we share,_

_That it's time we're aware_

_It's a small world after all //_

Xander tried to ignore the mocking echo in his brain as he sang his song.  All those little voices chorusing in, making light of his suffering.  Rotten little kids, all of them.  His dad was right; kids were nothing but trouble.  You fed them and clothed them and gave them a bed, and still they wanted things like piano lessons he couldn't afford to give them, or being taught to throw a baseball properly...as if he was ever any good at sports.  

_// Her name was Lola.  _

_She was a showgirl //_

Wesley could see Lola clearly in his mind, from the hem of her low-cut dress to the tip of her yellow feathers.  She was an ordinary girl, who dreamed of being something extraordinary.  Her heretofore-quiet life had ill prepared her for the storm of passion that swirled through the Copacabana that fateful night...

_// Fah who for-aze_

_Dah who dor-aze_

_Welcome Christmas,_

_Christmas Day //_

Christmastime at the Rosenberg house was...well, not actually Christmastime.  Chanukah was celebrated with all due reverence, joy, and even presents, but Santa Claus and Rudolph were conspicuously absent from conversation, as well as post-homework pre-bedtime viewing.  For that, little Willow Rosenberg had to sneak over to her best friend Xander's house.  She and Xander, and their other best friend Jesse, would huddle under one blanket as they watched poor little Max try to pull the Grinch's sleigh up Mount Crumpet, and Rudolph light up Christmas Eve with his shiny nose.  

_// Over the mountains, across the seas_

_Who knows what will be waiting for me?_

_I could sail forever to strange sounding names._

_Faces of people and places don't change //_

There wasn't much that Rupert Giles was proud of when it came to his college days, at least not on the first go around.  He had tried to fit into his father's plans for his life, but something deep within him rebelled.  He wasn't made to sit in musty old libraries and look up ancient prophecies to help some teenage girl go fight his battles for him.  He was meant for smoky nightclubs and dimly lit alleys, for excitement and danger and life lived on the edge.  He had tried to take all that his father had taught him and put it to use for his own ends, seeking the excitement he craved in the darkness he was meant to fight.  

_// We were out on a date in my daddy's car_

_We hadn't driven very far //_

Tara's mother died when she was seventeen; she knew all about the unpredictability of Fate.  Car accidents happened, and the railroad tracks weren't always empty when they should have been.  But sometimes people courted danger, without even realizing it.  

_// There was something in the air that night_

_The stars were bright, Fernando //_

Joyce and Hank Summers danced around the living room of their new home, as four-year-old Buffy sat on the stairs watching them through the railing.  There was a party going on, New Year's Eve if the noisemakers and confetti were any evidence.  People were drinking, and dancing, and singing along to the song playing on the stereo.  

_// This morning I woke up with this feeling_

_I didn't know how to deal with_

_And so I just decided to myself I'd hide it to myself_

_And never talk about it and didn't I go and shout it_

_When you walked into the room //_

He was not alone; she was here.  Angel clung to Buffy's hand as reassurance, but he couldn't shake the fear that clawed at him when all other demons were vanquished.

She was standing next to him now, her voice as strong and sure as the spirit it gave breath to.  She was alive, and as safe as she ever would be, and she even seemed to want him back in her life.  It was everything Angel could have hoped for, and yet, as he struggled his way through the silly bubblegum rock his subconscious had clung to for 30 years, he couldn't help thinking about the future.  

* * * * *

"Lorne," Cordelia asked suspiciously, "are you...you're crying, aren't you?"

"Oh but it's so sad," Lorne sniffled.  "If you could see the auras, Cordelia.  That poor thing...so frightened and yet so brave."  He paused to wipe his eyes with a large scarlet handkerchief he pulled from his breast pocket.  "Imagine her working in an industry that perpetuates the myth that finding a rabbit where you'd least expect it is a good thing.  The courage that girl has!"

Cordelia pulled the half-empty bottle of gin away from the Host and leaned over to put it on the next table.  

"That's it; I'm cutting you off.  If I have to deal with this sober, then so do you.  Why should I have all the fun?"  

* * * * *

_// It's a small world after all_

_It's a small, small world //_

Kids needed more than just piano lessons, Xander realized in a panic.  They needed someone to listen when they were upset, and someone who would know an 'I-have-a-history-test-today' stomach ache from an appendix looking for a rumble.  They would want answers to questions about things like death, and why they had to learn algebra; meanwhile he was still trying to keep up with Anya's quest for knowledge.

_// She sits there so refined _

_And drinks herself half-blind_

_She lost her youth and she lost her Tony,_

_Now she's lost her mind //_

How Wesley envied Lola, even with the wreckage that her life became.  The excitement, the danger, even the great loss, seemed so far removed from the almost monastic life of a Watcher turned rogue demon hunter turned private investigator.  So much of his life was spent searching the darkness for evil; how was he ever to find the beauty it might also contain?  The music?  The passion?

_// All I want to tell you, all I want to say_

_Is count me in on the journey._

Don't expect me to stay // 

Giles' experiment had ended badly, and he had tried to put it all behind him, yet the yearning for that life he had denied himself always remained buried beneath the layers of tweed.  And now he was heading back to where it all began.  Back to face the dreams he once had, and the way they fit with the life he had fallen into.

To face the man he had become by letting go of those dreams.

_// Welcome, welcome Christmas_

_Welcome, welcome Christmas_

_Day //_

Willow remembered feeling terribly guilty about sneaking out of her own house and doing something her parents wouldn't approve of; she normally wasn't that type of little girl.  But she also remembered how warm and happy she felt just being with her two best friends.  They were together, and together they could face anything, back in the days when 'hell' was just a word she wasn't supposed to say, and not a place she might someday visit.

_// I couldn't stop so I swerved to the right_

_I'll never forget the sound that night //_

Sometimes it wasn't just an accident; Tara knew sometimes the passenger made the driver deliberately head into danger, because the passenger thought they could get the car out of the way in time.  Because Willow...that is to say, the passenger...thought she could do anything, could call forth any power she needed, just because she needed it.  She didn't always realize that some powers weren't meant to summoned at will, and that a terrible price might be exacted for her willfulness.

_// Though I never thought that we could lose_

_There's no regret_

If I had to do the same again 

_I would, my friend, Fernando //_

Everyone at the New Year's Eve party was happy and smiling, especially little Buffy, as she observed the silly grown-ups from her solitary perch.  But the adult Buffy, looking back, was struck most by how young her parents seemed, and how much in love.  It was the first solid memory she had of them from her childhood, and the last one before her mother told her she would soon be a big sister.

_// I think I love you so what am I so afraid of?_

_I'm afraid that I'm not sure of_

_A love there is no cure for //_

Angel knew the coming dawn would temporarily separate him from Buffy, the way it kept him apart from the rest of his little family, but he was learning to deal with that.  He also knew she still had months, years really, of school left to complete at UC Sunnydale, but that no longer concerned him either.  The future he quailed in the face of was much farther away than Buffy herself could hope to see, and therein lay the problem.  His shansu was a vague prophecy at best, and he had so much to atone for before the Powers would grant him a new life.  He saw himself fifty years from now, a hundred, two hundred.  Still singing stupid songs like this, still fighting external demons to deny the existence of the demon within, and still loving this woman.

And therefore still alone.

* * * * *

Lorne sat up straight in his chair again and wiped his eyes as the singers straggled to the end of their selections.  The last one to finish, ironically, was the first one to start.  Anya's voice still quavered as she wound up for the big finish, but she gave it everything she had left.

_// And the moral of the story is_

_Hare today, goon tomorrow //_

"Bravo, bravo!" Lorne called out, clapping his hands loudly.  When he noticed Cordelia wasn't joining him in the applause he leaned across the table and pulled out an earplug.  "Clap," he commanded in a stinging whisper.  

"You've got to be kidding."  But with much rolling of eyes, and a heavy sigh for added emphasis, she began to clap as well.

"That was just great, guys," she said.  "We'll call you."

Willow opened her mouth to elaborate on some things she could call Cordelia, or maybe call down upon her, but Anya uttered a loud gasp before the witch could speak.

"I get it," Anya whispered in amazement.  She yanked at Xander's sleeve, almost pulling the seam apart in her excitement.  "I understand now."

"What do you understand, An?"

"The song," she answered, her eyes wide with wonder.  "The good fairy turned the bunny," she paused to shudder, "into a goon because that's what he was inside all along."

"Well, yeah..."

"They're like caterpillars," she continued breathlessly.  "They come to this planet as fluffy bunnies to lull foolish humans into a false sense of security before they assume their true form as goons that we have to spend our free evenings killing.  And they're so much harder to kill when they're full-grown too.  So the song teaches us to kill them before they do that butterfly thing...and then you and I will have time to have children."

"Anya, honey..."

"It really sounds quite rational when you hear her explain it all," Lorne remarked to Cordelia.

"You rationalized those white shoes you wore the weekend after Labor Day too; I don't want to hear it," she retorted, turning her head away.

"They were genuine snakeskin," he protested.  "Is it my fault the little rascal had a lucky summer?"

Willow raised her hand, waving it to gain the Host's attention.

"Umm, does anyone care that my song is starting to go away?"

"Well..." Cordelia began.

Lorne clapped his hand over the former cheerleader's mouth.  "That's just wonderful, doll.  So did you have any big revelations while you were singing your Wiccan heart out?"

Willow glanced quickly at Tara, and then beyond her to Xander.  "You could say that."  She took her girlfriend's hand firmly in her own.  "Tara, you know that later we were talking about yesterday?  I think it's later now."

Tara nodded and raised her free hand to wipe away the traces of tears she had shed during her song. 

"I think so too."  

"Tara, I'm sorry I haven't let you talk about New York," Willow blurted out.  She stopped herself for a minute to compose her thoughts, and then continued, "I guess I just didn't want things to change...more than they already have, I mean.  I feel like I'm finally finding myself, and you're a big part of that.  But it's hard to find yourself if everyone around you is changing.  You have to have a frame of reference."

"That's what scares me, Willow."  Tara's eyes were huge in her pale face as she flung her arms around Willow's neck and hung on for dear life.  "You're changing so fast, and your powers are growing and...and it used to be that I just felt left behind, but now...I don't want you to die, Willow!  That song...it made me so scared...but not as scared as the idea of losing you."

"But I'm fine," her lover protested.  

"All the dark magic...the power you had to use to bring Buffy back...it's changed you," Tara insisted.  "And I'm scared that if I go away, or even if I stay here, I'm going to lose you to it."

Willow sighed, an anxious frown settling across her brow.  "I guess this is going to be more than a one-talk talk."

"You two aren't the only ones who have some talking to do."  Xander looked to Anya, reaching over to pull her against his side.  "Anya...I love you, and we're going to spend the rest of our lives together.  But this whole timeframe you've got going with the babies...it's just wigging me out.  I don't want us to have kids right away just because you're between jobs."

"But...but my song," she said, her lower lip beginning to quiver.  "The things that it told me...I think I had a real breakthrough." 

He smiled fondly at her upturned face and patted her cheek.  "Uh, yeah, we need to talk about that too."

"But what I can't figure out," she continued with a frown, "is why the Good Fairy is working for the other side."

"Breakthrough, breakdown; it's really a toss-up," Cordelia said airily.

"So Wes," Lorne said quickly, stepping up on stage to block Xander from getting off of it, "how are things at the Copa?"  

"No longer in fashion, thank you very much."  Wesley smiled wearily and scratched his head.  "I can't imagine what drew me to that song except...it seemed so intense.  Life lived to the fullest, at least until that nasty single gunshot stanza.  It's not something I see very often..." he glanced at Angel and Buffy, standing hand-in-hand at the end of the stage, "except perhaps in the lives of others.  Angel, I'm...very sorry if I've made you feel responsible for my lack of personal drama.  I suppose I've just been a trifle envious."

Buffy looked curiously at her former Watcher, beginning to sense something of the man Angel saw inside of Wesley.  "I'm not knocking the benefits of an extreme lifestyle," she said slowly, "but as hard as we make it look...it's actually harder."

"I realize that, Buffy."  The ghost of a wistful smile dashed across Wesley's mouth.  "And while I don't think I'm quite up to living life as intensely as you and Angel do, I would rather I absented myself by choice, and not because of a lack of opportunity."

"Wesley," Angel said softly, "you are one of the most determined people I know.  It may take some time, but I know eventually you will find whoever, or whatever, it is you're looking for."

"One small favor, though." Cordelia pinched her two fingers together to demonstrate the relatively minor nature of her request.  "When you do find the 'whoever'...can you make sure she's not a 'whatever' too?  Cause we usually have to kill the whatevers."

Wesley folded his arm over his waist and bowed low, honoring Cordelia's gift for chasing away his blues.  "I will do my best."

"You know," Xander drawled, "the G-note was spouting a pretty funky tune there.  What was up with that?"  He grinned, enjoying the older man's discomfiture.  "Going back to the glory days, Ripper?"

"Yes, well, I suppose I was.  In a way."  Giles started to remove his glasses in preparation for polishing them, but the wave of knowing smiles that greeted his gesture dissuaded him.  He defiantly adjusted the spectacles, but left them on his face as he continued.  

"I'm not the same man that I was then, but I'm also not the same man who left England six years ago.  This may surprise you to learn, but I don't think I'm really a great deal more sure of who I am than any of you."  He ran a hand through his hair, trying not to notice it took just slightly longer every year to find the beginning of it.  "It certainly surprised me."

"The mystery of life, my friend."  Lorne clapped Giles on the back. "You live, you learn, you go on game shows and learn you still don't know it all." 

"And what more can be said about life than that, huh gang?  Unless..." Xander raised his eyebrow at Buffy and Angel, "someone else wants to share his or her irrational, yet melodic, fears?"

Cordelia took quick note of the discomfort on Angel's face, as well as Buffy's.  While she privately admitted that she enjoyed teasing Angel herself every once in a great while, Cordelia Chase was not about to let anyone else outside the family mess with him.

"Or unless somebody else wants to get a rented van back in time," she said smoothly.  "I vote we adjourn to the hotel, get something to eat and then I can take the Sunnydale crowd home."

"I really need to speak with Angel, Cordy my sweet.  And Buffy too, actually."  Lorne pretended anxiety as he made his appeal to Cordelia.  "Can I drop them off in about a half-hour, or will that wreak havoc with your timetable?"

She smiled in relief as she caught Lorne's drift.  "As long as they don't mind eating in the van...and as long as Angel promises not to spill anything that will be tough to explain to the car rental people...it's cool by me."

"So, we shall see you back at the umm, hotel, then?  Soon?" Giles asked.  

"Soon enough," Buffy promised, raising her eyebrow at his fatherly tone.  "Oh, and guys, before I forget, you all need to be at my house at eight tomorrow night.  Dawn is going to be back from band camp and she wants to...umm...she wants to play some of the songs she's learned."

Buffy cringed at the groans her announcement gave birth to, but took heart in the fact that no one refused her invitation.  Being able to literally drag people to her parties, if necessary, did have its advantages.

Angel was silent until the last of the Scoobies had departed, and Lorne was busy pretending to clean behind the bar on the other side of the room.  The vampire draped his arm around the Slayer and gently directed her to the edge of the stage.  They sat down side-by-side, Angel's arm still around her and his hand firmly ensconced in her two smaller ones.

"So," he said quietly.  "Do you want to tell me about Fernando now?"

* * * * *

To Be Continued 


	6. Chapter 6

Second Verse, Same as the First Part 6 

**By Gem, DeeJay & PJ**

"Fernando," Buffy answered with a faint smile, "was a song my mom and dad used to like.  Or at least they used to play it.  When I was singing it, I remembered this one party they had when I was really little." 

She leaned her head on Angel's shoulder as she relived the night in her mind.  

"I was supposed to be in bed, but I heard the noise and got up to see what was going on.  I stayed on the stairs, because I didn't want anyone to know I was up, and I just watched the party through the railing.  Everybody was happy...and probably a little drunk," she admitted, "and this song...'Fernando'...was playing.  I remember hearing Mom and Dad singing along with the stereo, and they just looked so...right together.  I felt so safe and warm and...in the right place in the world...if you know what I mean."

Angel tightened his arm around Buffy's shoulders and rested his cheek against the pillow of her hair.  Here, with her, was the only place he ever remembered feeling in the right place in the world.  

"I think it's the first really clear memory I have of my parents," she continued steadily.  "And then a couple of weeks later, after my fifth birthday party, my mom told me about a very special present I was going to be getting that summer: a baby sister or brother."

He stiffened; he had an inkling of where the story was headed.  Still Angel said nothing, letting Buffy find her own way to the truth she had been trying to avoid.

"The thing is...Mom never really told me she was pregnant with Dawn.  That's just some memory the monks gave me, to make Dawn fit in better.  To make me feel protective of her.  But I remember it like it really happened.  I can't not remember it, anymore than I can remember a Dawn-less version of anything else in my life.  At least not after that party."

"And is that so bad?" he asked quietly.

"No...but also yes."  She sighed heavily, twining her fingers through his as she clung to his hand.  "When I came back from the dead..."  Buffy laughed self-consciously.  "God, that sounds so dramatic, but it's the truth.  When I came back, I felt so out of place.  Nothing was the same, and everything just felt like it didn't fit, or that I didn't fit it.  I needed to figure out how I fit in before, but when I started looking back at my life...my first life, I guess we'll call it...I realized that my memories weren't really mine anymore.  They weren't real."

"Dawn had been with you for almost a year by then.  Hadn't it bothered you before?"

She smiled sadly.  "There wasn't time for it to bother me.  I found out about Dawn, and Glory was breathing down my neck and Mom was getting weaker and Riley was...well, he was just another problem.  Like I didn't have enough already.  I mean I knew in my head that my memories weren't real, and sometimes, especially before Dawn knew the truth, she'd start to reminisce or something and I'd feel kind of weird."

"I can imagine."  

And he could.  He remembered all too well when Doyle innocently brought up Buffy's post-Thanksgiving visit as he recalled it, little knowing the anguish the original memories of that day carried for Angel.

"But I didn't have time to get mad, or even think about the fact that those monks played 52 pick-up in my brain."  She clenched Angel's hand tightly, not noticing his wince of pain.  "But when I came back I realized that they didn't just put new memories in my head; they changed old ones."

"Buffy...could you just..." Angel pulled slightly at his hand, still an endangered prisoner of hers.

"Oh God, I'm sorry," she breathed, immediately loosening her grasp, though not relinquishing him entirely.

"It's okay," he reassured her.  "Just...go easy, okay?  I'm a lot harder to break than most people, but I can still dent."

She pressed a light kiss to his cheek, whispering against his pale skin, "I'll be more careful from now on, I promise."

This time it was he who squeezed her hand, signaling her to continue her story.

"It's just...they changed my memories, Angel, and now I can't find the real ones.  They're gone.  I remember fighting with my mom so many times over the way she treated Dawn, because I felt like Dawn got special treatment.  But I don't know if those fights were originally about something else...or did we really not fight as much as I remember?"

Buffy looked up at Angel with tear-bright eyes as more and more questions piled up, each one clawing for release faster than she could speak.

"Then there's my dad.  I remember times he came to get Dawn and me after the divorce and he'd make a special point of taking turns doing things we each liked to do.  This trip it was Dawn's choice, the next one was mine.  And now I don't know if the times Dawn got to pick...did we do something different?  Did he not come at all?  He doesn't even know about Dawn; how can I ask him?"

"Maybe it's time he knew the whole truth," Angel suggested, though he had his reservations about Hank's worthiness for such a sign of trust.

"I don't...I can't think about that now," she protested, freeing one of her hands to wave away his suggestion.  "Besides, it's not just the stuff they changed or added to, but what did they take away?  My brain can only hold so many memories, you know.  I mean why else would I forget my aunt's birthday, or where I parked the car at the mall?  They must have had to clear stuff out to make room for the Dawn-and-Buffy only moments, and how will I ever know what that stuff was?"

His heart was breaking for her confusion, but he didn't know how to help.  "You're looking for answers no one can give you, sweetheart."

"I know, I know," she groaned, burrowing her head in his shoulder.  "I can't even look in my diaries, because they changed all of them to fit Dawn too.  I tried reading some after I came back, but it was no good.  I realized that when I got to the summer after high school...Angel, I read about going to the mansion for the first time after you left."  

Buffy pulled away from his shoulder so that she could look into his eyes, but he had turned his face away in shame.  She reached up and gently pressed her palm to his cheek, needing him to acknowledge her, and the past.

"I didn't really need to read about it...I remember it pretty clearly, at least the revised version.  I can remember walking around the downstairs, seeing the sheets and the dust on everything and trying to pretend that you upstairs sleeping.  And that maybe you just weren't in the housekeeping mood and that's why the place was such a wreck.  I couldn't deal with it...with me...being abandoned."  

She sniffled a little and wiped a hand across her eyes; she had to get through this and she had to do it without tears.  They would only add to Angel's burden of guilt, as if he didn't already assign himself enough.

"The thing is, Dawn followed me, though I didn't realize it until I was leaving.  She didn't say anything; she just took my hand and walked me home.  And then that night, when I was lying all alone in my bed trying so hard not to scream, she came in and curled up next to me...and I started to cry.  I cried all night long and she never said a word.  But she was there."  Buffy drew a shuddering breath.  "Except she really wasn't.  And I'll never know if I cried that night, or screamed, or if that was the day I started locking everything about you in a place so deep I almost convinced myself it didn't exist anymore."

Angel pulled his hand free of Buffy's grasp so he could fold her in his arms.  "Buffy, I'm so sorry," he murmured into her neck.  "You never told me how hard coming back was for you...and I've been so afraid to push.  I didn't want to frighten you away entirely."

"I'm glad Dawn is here; I really am," she whispered, digging her chin into his shoulder.  "I can't imagine getting through Mom's death without her, and I swear, those first days back in the land of the living, knowing she was depending on me was the only thing that got me out of bed.   But it's so hard sometimes," she confessed.  "I don't know who I am because I don't know who I was.  Almost all my memories are messed up, half reality and half fantasy.  Or maybe not even half real; I have no way of knowing."

"But I do," Angel said, a tiny flare of hope blossoming within him.  "Buffy, I don't remember Dawn.  Those monks didn't touch my memories, and for the first time I think maybe there was a purpose for leaving me out of the loop."  He held her away from his shoulder, running his hand down the length of her tousled blonde locks.  "I can't answer questions about your childhood, but I can tell you about high school.  So can Cordelia, and even Wesley.  Our memories are untouched, and anything we know you can know too."

"But I'd feel so dumb," she murmured, ducking her head down to study the little nub of wool on the front of his grey sweater.  "And how am I supposed to know what to ask?  Just because Dawn wasn't specifically in a memory doesn't mean it wasn't changed to fit her in."

Angel sighed and tried to think of a more foolproof plan.  "Okay, I've got it," he said after a moment.  "You said your journals are tainted, but mine aren't.  Why would they be?"

She cocked her head to the side and smiled shyly at him.  "You keep a diary?"

"Not a diary," he responded uncomfortably.  "A journal."

Buffy nodded in a pretense of solemnity, though she had to bite her lip to keep the smile from breaking loose again.  "Oh yeah, you're right.  Completely different."

"It is," he protested, releasing her in order to slide back on the edge of the stage.  "I didn't write in it every day, just when things happened that I wanted, or needed to remember.  And I drew in it too..."

"Which is not at all dear diary-ish," she agreed with a nod.  "But Angel, didn't you say your old apartment blew up?  Or were the dia...journals in Sunnydale?  Because if they were, they've probably been rewritten too."

"I gave them to Cordy," he answered simply.  He realized it had been a little too simply an instant later, as he saw Buffy's teeth clench.  "I couldn't keep them with me anymore," he said, reaching out to touch her cheek.  "After you came to see me that one Thanksgiving...I couldn't have them around.  They reminded me too much."  

Of what they reminded him, he now knew he could never tell her; the pain she felt over unrecoverable memories already ran too deep.  Nor would he ever be able to tell her how well he understood her current confusion with determining reality.  She, at least, bore only one set of memories for any given day, even if those memories had been tampered with.  She would never know what it felt like to bear two sets for the same day, and feel herself torn inch by inch away from the sweetest of them by the inexorable progression of time.

"Does she still have them?" Buffy asked doubtfully.  "It's been a long time...and Cordy's not exactly the sentimental type."

"You'd be surprised.  Anyway, I know she does because I asked her about them after you died.  I still couldn't bear to look at them, but I needed to know they still existed."  Angel smiled as he remembered Cordelia's answer.  "She told me she should have tossed the box after the way I behaved when Darla came back...but Dennis wouldn't let her.  I think she was actually saving the stuff as ammunition, in case she ever had to drag out the big guns to keep me in line."  He shook his head.  "Still not sure of why she didn't."

Buffy cared little for Cordelia's motives, and mention of all that Angel had suffered at Darla's hands, unaided by his friends, still made her see red.  The faster they moved on from this topic, the better.

"Can we get them tonight?"  

Angel nodded and started to get up.  "Sure.  We'll go right now."

"Angel, wait."  Buffy put her hand on his arm and held him down near the stage.  "I've spilled my guts about Fernando.  Isn't it time you 'fessed up about your latent Partridge Family obsession?"

* * * * *

"It's not an obsession, Buffy."

Buffy wanted to laugh at Angel's indignant tone and stiffened frame.  If it were actually possible, she would say the vampire was even blushing.

"Angel, I know you've had a lot of time to stockpile music...but that's what makes it all the more freaksome.  Out of two-and-a-half centuries of classical music, opera, jazz, blues..."

"I get the picture," he snapped.

"You picked 1970s made-for-TV music?" she finished, smothering her smile with a raised hand.  "It just seems a little...not you, that's all."

Angel drew a deep breath and forced himself to relax.  Cordelia and Co. had made him a little sensitive about his musical tastes, but that was no reason to vent his insecurities on Buffy.

"You mean not dark or depressing, right?"  He sat back down next to her on the stage.  "No death, no destruction, and not even a single violin."

"Well, yeah.  And they were on TV.  I didn't think you even owned a TV."  

"I caught them on afternoon reruns, okay?  I don't get out much during the day."  He shrugged, trying to project indifference to the idea of television as entertainment.  It was a time-killer, nothing else.  "Besides, it was thirty years ago, Buffy.  People change a lot in that much time."

"Hoping to find that one out for myself," she said under her breath.  In a louder voice, she continued, "But moving on...to your viewing habits, specifically.  So you're telling me you not only watched 'The Partridge Family,' but you remember all the lyrics to at least one of their songs thirty years later?"

Angel glanced away, focusing his attention on an empty table near the stage.  "I didn't say I remembered all the words," he muttered.

"No, Lorne did," she agreed.  Reaching out, she pulled his hand into her own and squeezed it.  "And I was also standing right next to you.  You didn't look at the screen once."

"Okay, I confess; I knew all the words."  His breath came out in a gusty sigh.  "You know, I spend all this time...decades really...building up a nice sort of dark Byronic image for myself, and then it all gets blown away because I can appreciate more than one style of music."

She slid across the stage until she was pressed up against his side.  "I'm not teasing, honest.  Okay, maybe I was a little," she admitted with a quick smile, "but now I just want to know why.  I mean...why that song?  It, umm, it sounds so tentative.  I thought...well, aren't you sure how you feel about me anymore?"

Remorse slammed through him like a freight train, sweeping away any lingering traces of embarrassment.

"Oh Buffy, no," he said urgently.  "It has nothing to do with that.  Nothing in the way I feel for you has ever changed, except to grow stronger.  That's really where it came from."

"I don't understand."

"Did you listen to any of the lyrics, really listen?  No, of course not," he answered himself.  "You had to focus on your own song."

"I know some of it," she offered.  "Mostly the 'I think I love you' stuff, though."

He cupped her cheek with one cool hand.  "Do you remember the part where the song talks about 'a love there is no cure for'?  That was the line I was stuck on."

"You want to be cured of me?"  She freed herself from his touch and turned her face away.  "That's really flattering.  Way to make me feel like a bad cold."

"Buffy."  

She knew he wouldn't restrain her, or draw her back to him against her will, but the way Angel said her name had always tugged at something deep inside Buffy's soul.  It pulled her gaze back now, however reluctantly, to meet his own.

"I have loved since the moment I first saw you, six years ago.  I loved you in hell for centuries longer than I could remember my own name."  Angel delicately traced a line down the back of her hand with the tip of his finger.  "And I will still love you when the stars die out and the sky turns black.  And yes, that scares me.  More than I can say."

She watched him in silence, watched the deep, and supposedly calming, breaths he fought to draw in through long-dead lungs.  Watched the faint tremble of his jaw as he struggled for control of the emotions she always brought to his surface.  Watched the steadfast glow of his eyes as he told her the truth with his soul as well as his tongue.

"When you died," he began many long minutes later, "I thought I would die too.  I wanted to.  But..."

"It doesn't work that way," Buffy finished for him.  "I remember that too.  The summer I ran away because I sent you to hell...I'm pretty sure those memories are real, because Dawn didn't come into it at all.  And I know I wanted to die, but my body kept on going anyway."  She kicked the stage with the back of her foot.  "Stupid body."

"And barring stakes or beheading, my body will probably keep going for centuries.  Another millennium maybe."  He looked down at his long pale hands, now separated from hers.  "Without you."

She reached out instinctively, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling his head down to rest on her shoulder.  She could feel his arms come up to encircle her, clinging tightly in this moment, against days when he would no longer be able.

"I'm here now," she whispered.

"I know.  And you will be for a long time, if I have anything to say about it."  Holding her fast within his arms, Angel vowed he would indeed have something to say about it.  "But you died, and I had to face the reality that I would always love you, whether you continued to exist or not."

"But I came back."

"Yes you did."  He released her with a sigh and gently disengaged her arms from around his neck as well.  "I can't even tell you how..." his voice broke, and he had to fight to control it before he continued.  "When I knew that you were alive again, I was...I can't even describe how happy I was."  He raised his hand to push a lock of her hair off of her face, his fingers lingering in the warm flaxen strands.  "But then I realized that it would happen again.  You'd been given a second chance at life, and I'd been given a second chance to watch that life from a distance, and then to lose you all over again.  And then to mourn you again, this time forever."

Buffy looked deep into his eyes and saw the darkness that shadowed his soul.  All she had ever wanted to do was to lift Angel's burdens and bask in the peace she knew only she could bring to him.  But the past few years it had painfully been brought home to her that she was the bringer of that darkness, not its vanquisher, and that she could not bear.  Moreover, she would not allow it.

"Angel, what were you planning to do when we found those dia...journals of yours?" she asked abruptly.  

A frown creased his ageless forehead.  "Give them to you; why?"

"So you were just going to hand them off?" she pressed.  "No Q & A period scheduled for later?"

"You know you can call me any time," he protested.  "I'll answer any questions you want to ask; I already told you that."

She raised her chin and looked away.  "Not good enough.  I want a guided tour."

"Okay, now I'm confused."  He ran a hand through his already disheveled hair, forcing locks to spring out at all sorts of odd angles.  "When did this suddenly become about those journals?"

Buffy turned back to face him, holding him captive in her hazel-eyed gaze.  "Why is that you're the one who speaks like seven languages and yet I always have to be the interpreter?  We need each other to get through this, Angel, the same as we always have."  She reached up and seized his face between her two hands, trying to communicate with her eyes and her touch as well as her words.  "I am going to die again someday; I'm sorry, but I can't help it. And then you will be alone.  But I'm here now, and being alone is still a choice, not a gimme."

"It was never that simple, Buffy."

"No kidding."  She sighed gustily.  "Look, I know that I'm mortal and you're not, and the only way around that would be to change me, which I am not," she slid her finger over his parting lips, "suggesting.  I like the way I look with a tan.  But since we can't change it, wouldn't it make sense to just...get over it?"  

Angel took refuge in silence, trying to buy time to think.  Buffy, however, refused to be deterred.  

"If I'm willing to take whatever answers I can get from your journals, and let the rest of my questions go, would you be willing to accept whatever time we have together and leave the missing me part for when I'm actually gone?  For good, I mean."

He smiled, echoes of remembered pain in his dark eyes.  "Never for good, love."

"Okay, then forever.  Or at least as long as it takes you to catch up with me."

"Buffy, you said that we need each other, the same as always.  Well everything else is the same as always too." He hated himself for pushing her away, yet he was unable to stop.  "The reasons I left are all still there."

She nodded.  "Yeah, uh huh, and you've had over two years to realize they were a bunch of...hooey."

"Excuse me?"

Buffy caught her lower lip between her teeth, gnawing on it in sudden uncertainty.   

"Hooey," she repeated, less forcefully this time.  "That is right, isn't it?  I was watching this old movie the other night and...well, I thought since you don't seem to be understanding English I'd try for something a little more vintage to get my point across."

"That point being?" he nudged.

Now she was back on solid ground, and armed for battle.

"That you have managed perfectly well the past couple of years to run a business and even make friends, despite your sun allergy.  That after having taken a three-month, all-funeral-expenses paid vacation on the Other Side, the phrase 'normal life' has been crossed out of the Buffy handbook.  That I have less business having kids than you do, because I can't even guarantee I'll be around the next day, let alone the next twenty years or so."  Buffy's breath hitched as she thought of her own mother, who lasted the twenty and then no more.  

"At least you're immortal," she added when her voice had steadied.  "You'd be around long enough to teach them to ride a bike and stuff, but my insurance agent, if I had one, could tell you I'm not a good bet in that area."

"Don't talk like that," he said, his voice unusually sharp.

She held up her hands, palms facing him, in surrender.  "Sorry, sorry.  We're back to your pet peeve: that I won't live forever.  I repeat, get over it."

"Gee, thanks for your tender concern," he snapped.

"I'm not trying to make it sound like you're overreacting or anything, but if it's the only thing standing between us..." she sputtered into frustrated silence.

"It's not," he answered quietly.  "Sometimes my soul can seem like more trouble than it's worth, but I've gotten kind of used to having it around.  Can you say 'curse'?"

Lorne suddenly slapped his hand on the bar, forcefully reminding Buffy and Angel of his presence.

"Ooh, ooh," the Host called out.  "Angel, have I ever shown you my Joan Rivers imitation?"  He rested his hand on his hip and cocked his head to the side.  "Can we talk?"

* * * * *

"Lorne!  What the hell are you still doing here?"  

"Well, my large and romantically challenged friend, the last I knew I owned this establishment." The Host slipped around the front of the bar and headed towards the stage.  "More importantly, at least to my continued well-being and good looks, I promised Cordelia I would get you two kids back to the hotel before you turn into a dust bunny and that brave little Anya girl has to kill you." 

"I'm sorry," Angel quickly apologized.  He glanced at Buffy, who was blushing for both of them.  "I guess we forgot you were there."

"I shouldn't wonder.  You two were doing the angst-tango pretty hot and heavy; an audience was the last thing you were thinking about."

"Uh, yeah.  Listen, Buffy, maybe we should continue this discussion while we pick up those books at Cordy's place.  Lorne, could you drop us there instead?"

"Sure thing, Angel-cakes, but don't you want to hear what I wanted to tell you?"  Lorne pulled out a chair directly in front of the stage and propped his feet up next to Angel.

Angel glared at the bright yellow shoes knocking into his hip, and pushed Lorne's feet back to the floor.  

"I'm sure whatever it is can wait until we get Buffy what she needs," the vampire said, the warning clear in his voice.

Lorne tapped his chin with one long green finger.  "Unless these ears deceive me, the young lady said you're what she needs.  And I just might be the demon to grant her wish."

"Well now that Anya's assured us the Good Fairy has joined the dark side, I guess there is an opening on the other team."

"There's no need for sarcasm, Angel.  If I'm understanding the situation correctly, I really can help."

"The, umm, situation, really is pretty complicated," Buffy said, smiling weakly.  "You probably caught bits and pieces of it from what we said, but there really is a lot more to it."

"Oh buttercup..."

"Buffy," she corrected him.

"I didn't need to catch those little tidbits; Lorne sees all and knows all."  He smiled with satisfaction as he polished his nails on the edge of his coat.  "Also," he continued breezily, "Cordelia tells all."

"Cordelia," Angel groaned, as Buffy's lips tightened.

"Well, you can hardly blame the girl.  We were talking about the crowds at Neiman Marcus the day after Thanksgiving and the subject of hell came up.  From there it was just a hop, skip and a jump to you and the missus."

"Fine, so you know.  I'm sure Cordelia also made it overwhelmingly clear there is no point in discussing the curse that led me to hell."  Angel looked sadly, but steadily, at Buffy as he added, "It's a done deal."

Lorne sat up straight in his chair, his body taut with indignation.  "I should certainly hope so.  We wouldn't want that soul of yours wandering off again; if it made it to the freeway it might never find its way home."

"You know, this is really not my favorite topic to be joking about."  Buffy sighed as she pulled her feet up on the stage and crossed her legs beneath her.  "Could you just tell Angel whatever it is you want to tell him so we can go?  It's been a really long night."

"Sunshine, I'm trying to do just that, if you two would stop interrupting me and sending us off on all these tangents."  Lorne shook his head and tisk-tisked over their lack of focus.  "I've been trying to tell you that Angel's soul isn't available for interstellar flights anymore, or if it goes anywhere it's going to have to hitch up a sidecar for yours.  They're sort of," he held out his hands and twisted them against each other, "stuck together."

"That's very poetic and all, but what exactly do you mean?"  Angel glanced at Buffy, but she seemed as much at sea as he was.

"I read souls; you know that.  When people sing, I pretty much can't help it."

Angel nodded, prompting Buffy to do so as well.

"The first time you sang for me, I got a weird reading, but I figured it was a little misfire.  I mean, how many vampires with souls have I run across?" He shrugged elaborately.  "But every time you came back, I could still see it, and after a while it started to bug me."

"I could probably help more if you'd tell me what you saw."  Angel reached over without looking and took one of Buffy's hands in his, preparing for the worst.

Lorne nodded at Buffy.  

"I saw her."  

* * * * *

"This is starting to sound a little too Harlequin meets Stephen King for me," Buffy said uneasily.  "You didn't tell him that 'warming my heart with yours' analogy, did you?" she implored Angel.

"I'm not saying he stole your soul or anything," Lorne protested.  "You each still have one, just not...completely your own.  I realized it when I met you tonight, Buffy.  There's part of Angel's soul in you as well."

"We're back to 'romantic but what's the point,' Lorne?"  Angel all but growled in frustration.  

Lorne snorted at the surly vampire.  "Oh Mr. 'Love-You-Till-The-Sky-Turns-Black' is calling me sentimental?"

"Okay, so we're gonna be doing the leaving thing now."  Buffy tugged at Angel's hand.  "It was nice meeting you, Lorne, and thanks for the help, but..."

Lorne ignored her attempt at escape, despite the fact that it was intended for his benefit.

"Angel, as I understand your curse, a moment of perfect happiness can airlift that shadowed soul of yours out and send it on its way.  Or it could.  But now, you're not packing all your own soul; you've got some tucked away with Buffy for safekeeping, and that should be enough to hold the rest of it in place."  Lorne beamed at Buffy.  "And by the way, congrats on the perfect happiness thing, sweetie.  Not bad for a rookie."

"Lorne."  Angel really was growling this time, but it didn't wipe the smile from the Host's face.

"Oh lighten up, you big galoot.  I'm giving you good news."

"This doesn't make any sense," Buffy protested.  All thoughts of leaving before Angel took a vampire-sized poke at Lorne had fled in the face of this new, and confusing, information. "I mean, I want it to, but...we're still adding up to a 'not' here.  When did this happen?  How did this happen?"

"Could it have been the spell Willow used to restore my soul?  Did she change the words?"  Angel glanced at Buffy.  "Or maybe...could Jenny have changed them?"

"Mmm, I'm thinking no," Lorne answered, before Buffy could open her mouth.  "Your little red-haired witch does have a certain power going for her, but not so much as that sweet girlfriend of hers thinks.  And not nearly as much as she thinks of herself," he added with a pitying shake of his head.

"She did kind of raise me from the dead," Buffy offered gently.  "In my book that was a big deal."

"If you were truly and completely dead, the only way she could have brought you back was as a zombie.  Or something equally in need of a really good make-over."

"That's what she said," Buffy grumbled, "so she won't have to admit how much fire she was really playing with.  But I know I was completely, as in totally, dead."

"I'm sure you were...in body.  But your soul still had a connection to this earth."  Lorne waved his hand at Angel.  "He might not be everybody's idea of a ray of sunshine, but he certainly was the light at the end of your..." Lorne's voice tumbled to an abrupt stop, and then breezily changed course.  "Well, let's just say the mingling of your souls brought you back from the other side, and I'd be willing to bet it's also what shot Our Hero out of the depths of hell.  You tugged and he came back like a boomerang."

"So it was Willow's curse," Angel insisted.

Lorne tipped his head and delicately sniffed the air.  "No, I'm getting a definite scent of brimstone around the edges.  I'd say you made that bond yourself, Angel-face, while you were in the old hotbox.  Must have given the higher ups...or should I say lower downs...a real giggle too, to think of you tying yourself to the other world.  They probably thought they'd be getting Buffy in the bargain."

"This is crazy."  Angel shook his head dismissively.  "Now you're saying that not only is my soul bound to my body, but that I'm the one who did it."

"When I told you that you had the way out all the time, but couldn't see the slippers for the trees, did you think I was just talking about song lyrics?"

"Frankly, yes."

Lorne leaned forward in his chair, all traces of levity gone.  "Take it from someone who's been around the block in a couple of different dimensions, Angel:  love is the only real magic, and don't let anyone ever tell you different.  There isn't a spell in the world that can make it start or stop, not the true kind.  I can't think of any other power you can say that about."

"Are you sure...are you completely sure that there is enough of Angel in me to hold him here?" Buffy demanded.

Lorne held one hand up in front of his face and sketched an 'x' across his buttock with the other.  "Cross my heart and hope to never meet the badass demon I can also see inside the big guy."

"That's not what I call a guarantee," Angel said, avoiding Buffy's hopeful eyes.

"Then how about this one, tough guy.  How did you feel when you found out she was alive again?"

"I can't...I can't describe it really," Angel stuttered.

"Through the roof?" the Host prompted, receiving his answer in a nod.  "Yeah, I thought so.  And then when she came to see you, and you could hold her again, and you knew she was really, truly alive and not just some voice on the other end of the phone...how did you feel then?"

"Even more..."

Lorne held up a hand, cutting off Angel's halting reply.  "Through the roof and over the moon?"

Angel's head jerked in quick assent.  He really couldn't find the words to fit his feelings when Buffy had come to see him; for one brief instant it was every desperate fantasy come true.

"Through the roof, over the moon and down the other side is more like it, if I'm any judge of your hopelessly romantic self."

The vampire recovered his power of speech.  "I guess that says it as well as anything."

"Yeah, so, would you, umm, describe that as happiness?"  Lorne tapped his chin and tried to look thoughtful, though a mischievous gleam in his eyes somewhat hampered the effect.  "Perhaps, and maybe we're stretching the point here, but I have seen into your soul, and I think I know its little quirks by now...perfect happiness even?"

"I...I never thought about it like that," Angel stammered.  "I guess I just assumed...and no one ever told me different...I mean I had no reason to believe my soul was safe, so I thought it couldn't be perfect happiness."

"Because that would mean you could stop making yourself miserable over her," Lorne drawled.  "Can't have that, now can we?"

"Angel," Buffy said urgently, "do you trust Lorne?"  She picked up his hand and held it up against her heart.  "Would he lie about something like this, or tell you if was true if he wasn't sure?"

Angel turned his attention from the Host to Buffy, after a long and penetrating gaze into his friend's guileless red eyes.

"No, he wouldn't lie," Angel said.  "And it's hard enough getting solid facts out of him; he wouldn't waste his time on speculation."

She breathed a sigh of relief.  "Then we're okay."

Angel's eyebrows winged downward in a frown.  "Why, because Lorne says we can make love without world-endage?  That doesn't erase all the other differences between us, Buffy.  And they're even greater now than when I left Sunnydale."

"I know."  She paused.  "But ask me if I care."  

Buffy pulled his hand away from her heart and brushed it against her cheek.  The shiver she could feel run down his arm at the contact with her skin gave her hope.

"Angel, I don't know much about my life that's real anymore," she began slowly.  "From my fifth birthday, up until about 18 months ago, everything I remember is pretty much up for grabs in the fact department.  And there's not a whole lot in the past year and a half that I actually want to believe is true."  She kissed the tips of his fingers, one by one.  "But one thing I do know that I love you, the you that I see you turning into.  And I know that whatever future I can figure out for myself, I want you to be the best part of.  It won't have a best part without you."

One dark and flame-filled night about a thousand years ago, Angel had steeled himself to walk away from the only part of his life that mattered, because he knew he wasn't enough to be all that mattered to her.  Despite the good even he acknowledged he had done over the past three years, he knew he still wasn't enough.  

But looking at her now, seeing the strength and determination in her hazel eyes, he admitted that maybe it didn't matter anymore.  Slowly, painfully, he and Buffy had built their own lives.  They each had friends they loved, and work they were good at, and a reason besides each other to get up in the morning.

And yet, in spite of his best intentions, they also still had each other.  The bond between them hadn't frayed or faded in the interim; it had grown stronger as they had each grown stronger.  He could walk away again and pretend that distance would make it easier to lose her some day, or he could face his fears like the man she always believed he was.  

The man he wanted to be, not just for her, but also for himself.

"So what now?" he asked, the old seductive huskiness creeping into his voice.  

She gripped his hand tightly.  "Did I hear an 'uncle'?"

"No, you heard that I love you, and I need you, and that you completely scare me to death, but I know when I'm beat."  He shrugged and laughed softly, trying to look defeated.  "I'm a vampire, you're a vampire slayer.  You're supposed to win."

Lorne clapped his hands in delight as Buffy pulled Angel's head down for a long-overdue kiss.

"Oh, now that's what I like to see," the Host gloated.  "Happy endings really do boost the good vibes in this place.  And since my insurance rates went up after the first of the year...well, I appreciate the help."

"This doesn't magically fix everything, you know."  Angel pulled back slightly, though he still kept Buffy within the circle of his arms.  "We lead two very different lives in two different cities, and it's not going to be easy to find a middle ground."

"I live for a challenge, and so do you.  And you know our lives aren't really so different anymore."

"Buffy, we're sitting in a demon karaoke bar that I come to on a regular basis...and not always just for information."  He grinned at her obvious disbelief.  "Still think our lives aren't different?"

She pushed his arms away from her waist and stood up, leaning down to offer him a hand once she was on her feet.

"I think we can work out a compromise," she said sturdily.  "I'll learn to appreciate the subtle art form of karaoke if you promise to stop looking for the angst in bubblegum rock.  I mean, Angel...the Partridge Family?"

He sighed as he stood up, still holding her hand.  "And we're back to picking on Angel's taste in music.  Have you been talking to Wesley?"  He stepped off of the stage, pulling her along with him towards the exit.  "You know, his selections aren't exactly anything to brag about either.  And the singing!  Especially if Gunn and Cordy are with him; they take all the class out of Motown classics."

"Umm, kids," Lorne called after them, lazily waving a hand to get their attention.  "I was going to give you a ride to the..."

"What's Motown?" Buffy asked, completely oblivious to anyone but the man walking beside her.  At last walking beside her.

"Hotel," Lorne continued.  "Which is a long way away..."

"What's...oh Buffy," Angel groaned as he drew her up the stairs.  "You really better live a long life this time, because I have so much to tell you about."

"From here," Lorne finished, more to himself than his inattentive friends.

"Angel, I didn't come back from the dead for music appreciation lessons, so I hope you have a few more subjects in mind."  Buffy pulled her hand from his and slid her arm around his waist, molding her body to his.  "And, umm, show; don't tell."

The last Lorne heard of them was Angel's wicked chuckle floating down the stairs.

"Ah, young love," the Host sighed.  

The door clicked shut at the top of the stairs, leaving Lorne alone in the dimly lit club.  From the edge of the stage, an abandoned microphone began a siren song, luring him over to seize it in one triumphant fist.  

As he wandered around the club, straightening chairs and putting away glasses with his free hand, Lorne crooned into the mike clutched in the other.

_// The very thought of you_

_And I forget to do_

Those little ordinary things 

_That everyone ought to do //_

He paused in front of the stage and turned to face an imaginary audience.

"Don't they make the cutest couple, folks?  Don't you just want to eat them up?"  The Host slapped his hand over his mouth and shook his head, feigning embarrassment.  "Oops, silly question with this crowd."

One quick step up brought him center stage.  

"But you know, I do hope our Romeo realizes they're wandering around without coats or cab fare before that poor half-starved Juliet of his turns into a Popsicle.  Romance with a side of bronchial pneumonia only sounds sweet till the hacking begins."  He tapped his chin and began to stroll.  "Hmm, now where was I?  Oh yes, Lady Day."

_// I'm living in a kind of daydream_

_I'm happy as a queen //_

"No cracks from the cheap seats, fella," he paused to caution an empty chair.

_// And foolish though it may seem_

To me that's everything The mere idea of you The longing here for you You'll never know how slow the moments go Till I'm near to you // 

"At least till he springs for a Rolex."

// I see your face in every flower Your eyes in stars above It's just the thought of you The very thought of you My love. // 

(the music fades)

"Good night, everybody."

(the lights dim)

"You've been a wonderful audience."

(and the rest is silence)

* * * * *

THE END 

(And that, folks, is how we would have written "Buffy:  The Musical.")


	7. Appendix

**Second Verse, Same As the First**

Play List 

To make things slightly clearer, songs have been listed first by character, then title, and then credited creator.  Following the names of the creators, in parentheses, are the names of the individual artists, or musical group, who performed the songs (if known).

Disclaimer:  All lyrics are the intellectual property of their creators and have been borrowed strictly for entertainment purposes, not for any financial gain.  No copyright infringement is intended.

Angel:           "I Think I Love You"            By Tony Romeo (for The Partridge Family)

Anya:           "Little Rabbit Foo Foo"         By Unknown (American children's song)

Buffy:           "Fernando"                        By Stig Anderson, Benny Andersson &

                                                              Bjorn Ulvaeus  (for ABBA)

Giles:            "The Gold, It's in the..."       By Roger Waters & Dave Gilmour

                                                              (for Pink Floyd)

Tara:            "Last Kiss"                        By Wayne Cochran 

                                                               (for J Frank Wilson & The Cavaliers)

Wesley:         "Copacabana"                   By Jack Feldman/Barry Manilow/                                                                                                          Bruce Sussman   (for Barry Manilow)

Willow:          "Welcome Christmas"           By Dr. Theodor Geisel (a/k/a Dr. Seuss)

     Excerpted from: 

     How the Grinch Stole Christmas          

Xander:         "It's a Small World"             By Richard M. Sherman &

                                                              Robert B. Sherman

                                                              Copyright:  Walt Disney Corporation 

AND 

The Host:      "The Very Thought of You"  By R. Noble.  (for Billie Holiday)


End file.
